section_path: Provinces/Ireland/Province of Our Lady, Mother of Good Counsel
section_name: Province of Our Lady, Mother of Good Counsel
paragraph_text: Province of Our Lady, Mother of Good Counsel
  
  The English Province of the friars founded their first house in Dublin some time around 1280. Dungarvan followed in 1290. For a considerable time the Augustinians of Ireland were all English, effectively serving the English settlers in Ireland. The Irish branch was relatively poor, but the fortunes of the Irish order changed in 1361 when Lionel, became viceroy of Ireland. He favoured the order, and soon established an Augustinian professor of theology based at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and the Irish order then grew significantly until the time of the English Reformation.
  
  After the Reformation Parliament that began in 1529, the Augustinian houses in Leinster, Munster, Dublin, Dungarvan and Drogheda were soon suppressed. The houses in Ardnaree, Ballinrobe, Ballyhaunis, Banada and Murrisk managed to remain functioning until 1610. By decree in 1542 the English parliament had allowed the Augustinian community at Dunmore in County Galway, Ireland to continue. After 1610 the Dunmore community was the only surviving foundation, probably because Lord Bermingham's ancestors had founded the House.
  
  In 1620 the Irish Province of the Augustinians was given pastoral charge of both England (where all houses had been forcibly closed) and Ireland. Around 1641, the order received permission to occupy monasteries of the Canons Regular, who were no longer in Ireland. Irish Augustinian students were sent to the Continent to study, and the Irish Augustinians continued their work in Ireland under the Penal laws. A number were executed—including William Tirry. In 1656, in response to the persecution at home, Pope Alexander VII established the Irish Augustinians in Rome in the church and priory of San Matteo in Merulana. Many Augustinians though remained in Ireland. Others left to work in America and after the 1830s to Australia. After the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, the order began to re-organise more openly in Ireland. The Irish friars took the order back to England, establishing a priory at Hoxton, London in 1864. They further turned their attention to Nigeria, Australia, America and missionary work. The contemporary Irish order conducts parishes, a school in Dungarvan (founded 1874), a school in New Ross and special ministries in Ireland.