Andrew Donlevy

Andrew Donlevy

Educator, b. in 1694, probably in Sligo, Ireland; date and place of death uncertain. Little is known about his early life. With the penal laws then rigorously enforced it was difficult to obtain an education at home; and when he went abroad to study for the priesthood he must have gone in disguise, going abroad for any such purpose being a crime. However, he reached Paris in 1710 and became a student at the Irish College. His clerical course finished, he was ordained priest, and in 1728 was appointed prefect in the college, an office he held till 1746. He had also attended lectures at the university, graduating both in theology and law. While holding the office of prefect, he drew up a new code of rules for the government of the college, placing it under the control of the Archbishop of Paris and subject to the university. He also published in 1742 an Irish-English catechism of the Christian Doctrine, an edition of which appeared in Dublin in 1848.

E.A. D'ALTON