2 Irish Clergy in Rome in the Early Seventeenth Century
3 The Beginning: The Founding of St. Isidore’s and of the Irish College
4 Forging the Missionary Links between the "Urbs" and "Hibernia"
5 A New Dimension to the Irish Mission: The West Indies
6 Missionary Supply in Crisis Years: The Colleges and Ireland
7 The Colleges in Transition
8 "Ten Thousand Irish Catholics extremely Oppressed by the English Heretics": Rome, and the Irish Missions in the West Indies during the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century
9 Conclusion
Appendix I: List of students admitted to the Irish College of Rome, 1628-64
Appendix II: List of students admitted to St. Isidore’s, 1625-54
Bibliography
Matteo Binasco is Adjunct Professor in Early Modern History at the University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy. His research interests are in Irish migrations across the Atlantic and to Rome during the early modern period. He is author of Roman Sources for the History of American Catholicism, 1763-1939 (2018) and editor of two volumes, Rome and Irish Catholicism in the Atlantic World, 1622-1908 (2018) and Luke Wadding, the Irish Franciscans, and Global Catholicism (2020).
This book reconstructs the efforts that were made to establish a missionary network between the two Irish Colleges of Rome, Ireland, and the West Indies during the seventeenth century. It analyses the process which brought the Irish clergy to establish two dedicated colleges in the epicenter of early modern Catholicism and to develop a series of missionary initiatives in the English islands of the West Indies. During a period of great political change in Ireland, continental Europe and the Atlantic region, the book traces how and through which key figures and institutions this clerical channel was established, while at the same time identifying the main obstacles to its development.