An Epoch in Irish History (1903) Book

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
CHAPTER II THE FOUNDING OF THE COLLEGE The long conflict concerning the transformation of S. Patrick's Cathedral into an Irish University came to a conclusion with the retirement and disgrace of Perrot, its hottest advocate. Loftus and his party had the satisfaction of discrediting all the proposals of their adversary, and this solution of the question, which had for forty years seemed the most practical and probable, and had old traditions to support it, was finally abandoned. But if the ecclesiastics of S. Patrick's saved their incomes, what was to be done for the endowment of the new University, which all desired ? To expect any liberal grant from the queen was out of the question ; fair words and a charter, which cost nothing, might be obtained. Under these circumstances it seems to have occurred to a group of earnest citizens, of whom the clerics had been educated at Cambridge and abroad, that they would make a beginning by any means, and trust to the future for larger support. Of these men, Archdeacon Henry Ussher (afterwards Primate) and the Rev. Luke Challoner are to us the most prominent, the former in being the agent sent to Court to persuade the queen ; the latter, by his constant labour and care of the growing College, and by subsequent missions to England, so much so, that he was justly considered the real founder by the men of his day. Archbishop Loftus helped by making speeches, and gave the dignity of his name to the College by posing as its first Provost; but he neither actually governed the society nor contributed more than a decent thankoffering (100) for the profits he had retained in S. Patrick's. No sooner was the building inhabited, and its academic life begun, than he retired with the queen's licence in favour of the first acting Provostâ?"Travers. ...