John Colgan

John Colgan, O.F.M. (Irish Seán Mac Colgan; c. 1592 – 15 January 1658), was an Irish Franciscan friar noted as a hagiographer and historian.

Life

Colgan was born c. 1592 at Priestown near Carndonagh. He joined the Franciscan Order and was sent to study in the Irish Franciscan College of St. Anthony of Padua in Leuven (Irish: Lúbhán, French and historically in English: Louvain) in present-day Belgium in 1612. He was ordained as a priest in 1618. Here he is said to have acted as professor of theology for some time, but he soon forsook the professorial chair to devote himself to the Irish studies for which that college was famous.

Father Hugh Ward (d. 1635) had projected a complete history of the Irish saints, and for this purpose had sent some of his brethren, notably Michael O'Clery, to Ireland to collect materials. Ward died before he could make any progress in his work, but the materials that had been gathered remained. Colgan, being a competent master of the Irish language, had thus ready at hand an excellent collection of manuscripts of Irish hagiology.