Page:A Catalogue of Graduates who have Proceeded to Degrees in the University of Dublin, vol. 1.djvu/60

 liv INTRODUCTION. ceeded to have the oaths administered as usual, but was inter- rupted by the veto of the Senior Master Non-Regent. Dr. Miller's narrative is as follows : — " It may be useful to remark, that the Senior Non-Regent, though an offi- cer unknown to the Charters and authentic Statutes, and a mere fiction, created in the vain attempt to reconcile institutions essentially incongruous, has not been a mere inactive pageant, filling up the ceremonial of a public Commencement, without asserting the prerogative with which he was invested by these supposed Statutes. " In the Commencement, held in the month of July in the year 179.3,, this officer came into direct collision with the Vice- Chancellor, the late Earl of Clare, who, after some consideration, gave way, and consented that the Com- mencement should proceed in the manner required by the Senior Non-Regent. The question, about which this struggle occurred, was whether persons, pro- fessing the Roman Catholic religion, should be permitted to graduate in the University. Before this time many individuals, known to be of the Roman Catholic persuasion, had been permitted to pass through the preparatory course of education, but one of the oaths, required of candidates for degrees, and a declaration to be at the same time subscribed, had presented insuper- able obstacles to their graduation. "In the Session of the year 1793, an Act of Parliament was passed for the relief of persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, and by the 13th section it was enacted that the impediments which had hindered them from being educated in the University, so far as they had been created by Statute law, should cease on the first day of June in the same year. The oath and declaration had both been prescribed by an Act of Parliament, passed in the year 1692, but it appears from the supposed Statutes of the University that the oath had been adopted at the Commencement in the month of February in the preceding year, in consequence of a resolution of the Academic Senate. The oath was therefore considered as partly supported by a Statute of the University, the declaration* as resting wholly on the authority of an Act of Parliament. " Accordingly at the Commencement, held in the month of July in the year 1793, when the oaths had been administered, and the Senior Proctor was beginning to recite the declaration, the Senior Non -Regent declared that if the Vice- Chancellor should persist in requiring that this declaration, which appeared to have been abrogated by an Act of Parliament, should then be means the Declaration against Transuh- 157 (1791). Comp. 3 "Will. & Mary, stantiation, &c., adopted hy the Univer- cap. 2, iy,ffl,, extended to Ireland 21 & sity and enjoined upon all Candidates for 22 Geo. III., c. 48, sect. 3.
 * By "The Declaration" Dr. Miller Degrees, Feh. 8, 1691, Univ. Stat, -p.