In the history of the Society of Jesus in 19th century Ireland and

America, Peter Kenney SJ played a very significant role. He re-established the order in Ireland after its restoration by Pope

Pius VII in 1814 and enunciated its independence from the English

Jesuit province.

Kenney bought Castle Browne near Clane in Co Kildare, which he renamed Clongowes Wood. He founded Clongowes as a school for the education of the Catholic middle class - despite warnings from the

Chief Secretary for Ireland, Robert Peel, that the state would watch

Clongowes with "jealousy" and could confiscate the property. One informer reported to Peel that the Jesuits at Clongowes were "likely to do more mischief than a rebel army on the Curragh".

This was a time of much hostility towards the Jesuits both within and without Catholicism. Indeed, in 1829 the Act introducing emancipation suppressed the religious orders in Ireland, naming the

Jesuits specifically, but it remained a dead letter on the statute book. Kenney was born in Dublin and educated at Carlow College,

Stonyhurst, in England, and Palermo in Sicily, where he was ordained in 1808. From an early age, he was marked out by contemporaries as a man of talent, and his rise to positions of administrative responsibility was effortless though his own personal disposition was for a pastoral or missionary life.

He was not long back in Ireland when he was named vice-president of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, with Daniel Murray the coadjutor archbishop of Dublin as president. Kenney accepted the position for a year at a difficult time in Maynooth's history. At Clongowes, as rector and superior of the Irish mission, Kenney had to tread carefully with awkward colleagues such as Esmonde and Aylmer, scions of old gentry families. Relations with the diocese in which Clongowes is situated and its bishop, James Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin, were also turbulent for a time.

Kenney was part of a circle of influence which advanced the thriving Catholic life of Dublin in the early 19th century. He was much relied upon by contemporaries as a wise counsellor. He was particularly close to Archbishop Murray of Dublin and acted as adviser to him on occasion.

Kenney mediated in disputes between Mother Mary Aikenhead and

Sister Ignatius Bodenham of the Sisters of Charity and between

Brother Edmund Ignatius Rice and his successor, Brother Michael Paul

Riordan, of the Christian Brothers. He was also instrumental in

Mother Teresa Ball's founding of the Irish Loreto Sisters.

Morrissey states that the development of the American Jesuit mission was probably Kenney's greatest contribution to the church.

Kenney was twice sent to America as official Visitor and Superior in the years 18191820 and 1830-1833, and over a third of the book is devoted to this fascinating period of his life.

He saved Georgetown University and reformed St Louis University.

He was responsible for the expansion of the order in Maryland and

Missouri. He also contributed to the ending of slavery on the order's farms. In America he was pressed to accept the bishoprics of

Philadelphia and Cincinnati, which he turned down.

Morrissey's biography has relatively little to say on the great political issues of the day, inevitably so as this was not Kenney's primary focus. The book is chiefly concerned with Kenney's considerable religious impact. Kenney was particularly well-known and very much in demand throughout Ireland as a preacher at church openings and as a giver of retreats to diocesan clergy.

He died relatively young, worn out by his habitual asthma and his seemingly endless pastoral endeavours, especially long hours spent in the confessional, in Hardwicke Street, Dublin.

Dr Morrissey has written a lengthy and detailed life and times biography of Peter Kenney. His book is an important contribution to

19th-century Irish and American religious history.