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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Saint Leger, William (1600-1665)

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602115Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 50 — Saint Leger, William (1600-1665)1897Thompson Cooper

SAINT LEGER or Salinger, William (1600–1665), Irish jesuit, was born in the county of Kilkenny in 1600, entered the Society of Jesus at Tournai in 1621, studied afterwards in Sicily, and was professed of the four vows in 1635. After his return to Ireland he became superior of his brethren in that country during the time of the rebellion, which began in 1641. He was rector of the college of Kilkenny in 1650, and, when the former city was taken by Cromwell's army, he removed to Galway. At the end of the rebellion he escaped to Spain, and succeeded Father John Lombard as rector of the residence of Compostella, where he died on 9 June 1665.

He wrote ‘De Vita et Morte Illustrissimi Domini Thomæ Valesii [Walsh] Archiepiscopi Casiliensis in Hibernia,’ Antwerp, 1655, 4to, a work of great rarity.

[Catholic Miscellany (1828), ix. 40; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 313; Foley's Records, vii. 680; Hogan's Chronological Cat. of the Irish Province S. J. p. 30; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 265; Southwell's Bibl. Soc. Jesu, p. 319; Ware's Writers of Ireland (Harris), p. 144.]