Remembering the Irish College in Salamanca, Spain, and the evacuation of seminarians

From the Irish College building in Salamanca, the Colegio Arzobispo Fonseca. / Credit: Patrick J. Passmore Dublin, Ireland, Aug 5, 2025 / 12:28 pm (CNA). On Aug. 4, 1936, the last seminarians at the Irish College in Salamanca, Spain, were put on a British Navy destroyer from the Irish College’s summer coastal retreat in Pendueles in Asturias, northern Spain. The Spanish Civil War had escalated, and for their safety, the students were evacuated, never to return. The evacuation began a…