Item 1737 - Fr Robert Meade SJ

Born: 29 September 1633, Kinsale, County Cork
Entered: 24 December 1654, Nancy, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)
Ordained: 1664, Pont-à-Mousson, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1681
Died: 29 May 1704, St Anthony’s College, Lisbon, Portugal - Campaniae Province (CAMP)

1656-1658 At Pont-à-Mousson studying Logic and Physics
1658-1659 At Verdun teaching Grammar - capable of teaching and doing missionary work and many other things in due time
1659-1661 At Charleville teaching Grammar
1661-1664 At Pont-à-Mousson studying Theology and Prefect of Physicists in Boarding School and Rhetoricians
1664-1665 Went to FLA-BELG
Taught 3 years in CAMP. On Irish Mission 33 years (4 months in prison). Driven into exile to Lisbon

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1671 On the Irish Mission for may years; Imprisoned for eight months and deported; Zealous Preacher; Died of old age (Franco’s “Synopsis”)
1691 Preaching in Cork and Kinsale
1694 On Parochial duty in Cork, in great poverty
1714 In reporting his death, his Superior calls him “impiger concionator” (Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Educated by the Jesuits at Tournai before Ent 24 December 1654 CAMP
1656-1658 After First Vows at Nancy he studied Philosophy at Pont-à-Mousson
1658-1661 He was then sent for Regency at Verdun and Charleville
1661-1665 He was sent to Pont-à-Mousson for Theology and he was Ordained there 1664, and then did a further year of Theology at Douai.
1665-1666 In the Summer of 1665 the General wanted him to go to the ANG Tertianship at Ghent, in order to improve his proficiency in English, and therefore be more available for the Irish Mission. There was no space at Ghent, so he made his tertianship at Lierre instead.
1666-1669 He was sent as Operarius at Cambrai
1669 Sent to Ireland and Cork where he worked for the next 30 years. His command of Irish was put to good use there, and he was an able Preacher and undaunted by the poverty and hardship of his mission. In the mass arrests and enforced exile of the regular clergy of 1697/98 he was captured, imprisoned for eight months and then put on board ship bound for Portugal. He found temporary refuge at Irish College Lisbon, but on the General's orders he was received at the College of Évora. As there was nobody there to speak with him in Irish or French, he was allowed to settle at the College of St Anthony in Lisbon, a city which then had a sizeable population of Irish refugees. He died there 29 May 1704.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
MEAD, ROBERT. The first time that I meet with him is in the Lent of 1671, when he gave Evening Instructions twice each week at Cork, and twice also at Kinsale. In a letter dated Waterford, the 25th of November, 1694, he is described as well acquainted with the Irish language, living in a very desolate part of the country, and in great poverty; but zealous and fruitfully engaged in the work of the Ministry. He died abroad, an exile for the Faith, and in advanced years, as I find by a letter written in 1714, and he is said to have been “impiger concionator”.