Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/French, Peter
FRENCH, PETER (d. 1693), missionary, a native of Galway, studied divinity in Ireland and in the south of Spain, and became a friar of the order of St. Dominic. Going to Spanish America, he laboured for thirty years as a missionary among the Indians of Mexico, great numbers of whom he converted from idolatry. He wrote in the Mexican language ‘A Catechism or Exposition of the Christian Faith,’ but whether it was printed does not appear. Returning to his native country, he was employed on the mission until his death, which took place in Galway in 1693.
[Quétif and Echard's Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, ii. 735, quoting John O'Heyn's Epilogus Chronologicus exponens Conventus et Fundationes Ordinis Predicatorum in regno Hiberniæ, Louvain, 1706, p. 24; Ware's Writers of Ireland, p. 295; Hardiman's Galway, p. 254.]