ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Irish college in Bordeaux from its inception in 1603 to its dissolution in 1789. The chapter begins by placing the Bordeaux college within a broad network of Irish continental colleges, before turning to the particularities of Bordeaux. Ó Catháin explores the backgrounds of the Irish seminarians and priests, showing how they moved into and beyond Bordeaux, and how they integrated with the host society as well as interacted with the Irish merchant community. The chapter examines clerical networks created by the Bordeaux college and its graduates, and concludes with an examination of the career of Father Patrick Everard, the last president of the college, and indeed a man who barely escaped the clutches of the anti-clerical French revolutionaries. Based primarily on nineteenth-century antiquarian sources, it is the most complete history of the Irish college in Bordeaux to date.
