Maynooth College Act 1795

The Maynooth College Act 1795 (35 Geo. 3 c. 21) was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland that established and arranged the funding for St Patrick's College, Maynooth as Ireland's Catholic seminary.[1]

Irish Catholic priests had traditionally been educated on the Continent in seminaries but in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during its ensuing wars many of these seminaries were either closed down or became inaccessible. Bishops were also worried that students on the Continent might become exposed to the "contagion of sedition and infidelity".[2] The British government was opposed to full Catholic emancipation and had recently passed the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, with a similar Irish Act in 1793 a measure of conciliation.