🎫Book your ticket to join us for the launch of this exhibition on a rarely seen cross-over in Irish and Spanish history in the Russell Library https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/ex...

The materials on display will tell the story of migrants who left Ireland at the turn of the seventeenth century — largely due to the completion of the Tudor conquest and its chilling effect on the free practice of Catholicism — for safer shores in the Spanish empire. There, they were given a religious education no longer possible in their homelands, ordained as priests, and sent into service across the world for their new benefactors. Though some were destined for administrative positions as close as Madrid and missionary work as far as Mexico, many were sent on a dangerous return journey called the Misión de Irlanda, or “Irish Mission”.

The members of this so-called “Irish Mission” left behind traces of their lives in the thousands of documents that now reside in the Salamanca Archive. The collection contains documents on their lives and movements amid Ireland and Iberia.

The launch will focus on the early years of their struggles and desires for the communities they were shaping at home and abroad, as well as the questions that continue to speak to our own world. Who do we accept and reject in our societies? And what are the reasons and historical prejudices underlying those choices? Together, the organisers hope this glimpse into the “Irish Mission” and its college network can provide a glimpse into such challenging reflections for the past as well as the present.

Curated by Dr Laura Francis, a researcher and translator specialising in multilingualism in the early modern world in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies) in Maynooth University.