Thomas A. Finlay

He was born on 6 July 1848 near Lanesborough, the son of William Finlay, an engineer, and his wife Maria Magan; the politician Thomas Finlay, named after him, was his nephew. His father, who died in 1864, was from Fifeshire, a Protestant convert to Catholicism; his mother was a Catholic from County Cavan.{{cite book |last1=Morrissey |first1=Thomas J. |title=Thomas A. Finlay SJ, 1848-1940: Educationalist, Editor, Social Reformer |date=2004 |publisher=Four Courts Press |isbn=978-1-85182-827-2 |page=13 |language=en}}

Finlay was educated at St Augustine's College, Cavan, and became a novice of the Society of Jesus in 1866, at the Jesuit theological faculty, Milltown Park, Dublin. He took vows in 1868. He then spent time in Saint-Acheul, France, the Gregorian University, Rome. Moved on because of capture of Rome of the Risorgimento, he was sent to Maria Laach Abbey, in Germany. There he encountered Prussian agricultural methods and the Raiffeisenbank system; and gained an interest in biology from colleagues.{{cite book |last1=Morrissey |first1=Thomas J. |title=Thomas A. Finlay SJ, 1848-1940: Educationalist, Editor, Social Reformer |date=2004 |publisher=Four Courts Press |isbn=978-1-85182-827-2 |page=15 |language=en}} He returned to Ireland in 1873.{{cite ODNB|id=52697|first=Thomas J.|last=Morrissey|title=Finlay, Thomas Aloysius}}

From 1873 to 1876, Finlay taught at Crescent College, Limerick. He founded and edited the magazine Catholic Ireland, with Matthew Russell, later the Irish Monthly. In 1877 he was moved to St Beuno's College in Wales, where he was noted for "direct speech and rough clothes".{{cite book |last1=White |first1=Norman |title=Hopkins : a literary biography |date=1992 |location=Oxford |isbn=019818350X |page=383}} He overlapped there with Gerard Manley Hopkins, whom he knew better from 1884, when Hopkins was a fellow of the Royal University of Ireland and had a post at University College, Dublin. At St Beuno's Finlay started The Lyceum, the college magazine, in the year he arrived, but could not induce Hopkins to contribute.{{cite book |last1=Morrissey |first1=Thomas J. |title=Thomas A. Finlay SJ, 1848-1940: Educationalist, Editor, Social Reformer |date=2004 |publisher=Four Courts Press |isbn=978-1-85182-827-2 |page=16 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=White |first1=Norman |title=Hopkins : a literary biography |date=1992 |location=Oxford |isbn=019818350X |pages=386 and 399}}{{cite ODNB|id=37565|first=Norman|last=White|title=Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844–1889)}}

Finlay in 1880 was ordained priest, and in 1881 he was made head of St Stanislaus College in Tullabeg, replacing William Delany.{{cite book |last1=Morrissey |first1=Thomas J. |title=Thomas A. Finlay SJ, 1848-1940: Educationalist, Editor, Social Reformer |date=2004 |publisher=Four Courts Press |isbn=978-1-85182-827-2 |page=16 |language=en}}

Amid reorganisation of the Catholic colleges in Dublin, Finlay moved on to University College, Dublin (formerly the Catholic University), then under Henry Neville. In 1883, under Delany from December, he became joint professor at University, with his brother Peter, of mental and moral science. He was also made rector of Belvedere College in north Dublin.{{cite ODNB|id=55181|first=Thomas J.|last= Morrissey|title=Delany, William (1835–1924)}} He was auditor of the Literary and Historical Society (University College Dublin) in 1883–1884; and, in turn, professor of classics, of philosophy, and of political economy at University College, from 1903 to 1930.

With Horace Plunkett he helped found the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, and was a member of the 1895 Recess Committee which led to the establishment of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, a forerunner of the Department of Agriculture.[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14342 Ireland in the New Century], Chapt.8 He was a Commissioner of National Education, chaired the Committee on Intermediate Education, and was chairman of the trustees of the National Library.Morrissey, 2004 He was president of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland between 1911 and 1913.{{cite web |last1=Finlay |first1=T. A. |title=Labour associations in their relation to the state |url=http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/7925 |website=tara.tcd.ie |language=en |date=1912|hdl=2262/7925 }}{{cite book |last1=Rankin |first1=Kieran |last2=Sweeney |first2=P. |last3=Keating |first3=B. |title=Biographical Portraits of the Past Presidents of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland |url=http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/73814 |website=tara.tcd.ie|page=2 |publisher=Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland |language=en |date=2014|hdl=2262/73814 }}

Finlay was involved as founder and editor of a second magazine called The Lyceum (1889–1994), and with the New Ireland Review and its successor Studies : An Irish Quarterly Review. He founded the Irish Homestead for the co-operative movement, in 1896, and edited it to 1905. He also helped found the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart.Studies, Vol. 29, No. 113, Mar., 1940

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• Thomas J. Morrissey, SJ Thomas A. Finlay SJ, 1848–1940, Educationalist, editor, social reformer. Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2004. {{ISBN|1-85182-827-3}}

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Category:1848 births

Category:1940 deaths

Category:19th-century Irish Jesuits

Category:20th-century Irish economists

Category:Irish religious writers

Category:19th-century Irish economists

Category:19th-century Irish philosophers

Category:20th-century Irish philosophers

Category:People from County Cavan

Category:Alumni of University College Dublin

Category:People associated with the National College of Ireland

Category:Irish magazine founders