nd successful
impugner of Cambrensis, was another literary luminary of the age. His
career is a fair sample of the extraordinary difficulties experienced by
the Irish in their attempts to cultivate intellectual pursuits, and of
their undaunted courage in attaining their end. Usher has himself
recorded his visit to Galway, where found Lynch, then a mere youth,
teaching a school of humanity (A.D. 1622). "We had proofe," he says,
"during our continuance in that citie, how his schollars profitted under
him, by the verses and orations which they brought us."[518] Usher then
relates how he seriously advised the young schoolmaster to conform to
the popular religion; but, as Lynch declined to comply with his wishes,
he was bound over, under sureties of L400 sterling, to "forbear
teaching." The tree of knowledge was, in truth, forbidden fruit, and
guarded sedulously by the fiery sword of the law. I cannot do more than
name a few of the other distinguished men of this century. There was
Florence Conry, Archbishop of Tuam, and founder of the Irish College of
Louvain. He was one of the first to suggest and to carry out the idea of
supplying Irish youth with the means of education on the Continent,
which they were denied at home. It is a fact, unexampled in the history
of nations, that a whole race should have been thus denied the means of
acquiring even the elements of learning, and equally unexampled is the
zeal with which the nation sought to procure abroad the advantages from
which they were so cruelly debarred at home. At Louvain some of the most
distinguished Irish scholars were educated. An Irish press was
established within its halls, which was kept constantly employed, and
whence proceeded some of the most valuable works of the age, as well as
a scarcely less important literature for the people, in the form of
short treatises on religion or history. Colleges were also established
at Douay, Lisle, Antwerp, Tournay, and St. Omers, principally through
the exertions of Christopher Cusack, a learned priest of the diocese of
Meath. Cardinal Ximenes founded an Irish College at Lisbon, and Cardinal
Henriquez founded a similar establishment at Evora. It is a remarkable
evidence of the value which has always been set on learning by the
Catholic Church, that even in times of persecution, when literary
culture demanded such sacrifices, she would not admit uneducated persons
to the priesthood. The position which the proscribed Catholic pr