What's the connection between Good King Wenceslas, Irish medical students and the 1798 rebellion? The link can be found in a new exhibition in the TCD library with the title A Bohemian Refuge: Irish Students in Prague in the 18th Century.
King Wenceslas, famous from the Christmas carol, was a 10th century ruler of Bohemia and a Christian martyr. He encouraged the work of German and other western European missionary monks and priests to bring Christianity to his country and is now the patron saint of the Czech Republic.
Those missionaries included some from Ireland. They blazed a trail which led to the foundation in 1629 of a Franciscan college in Prague by, among others, a Father Patrick Fleming.
In the following century the presence of Irish Franciscans, as well as aristocratic Wild Geese families, such as the Butlers and the Taaffes, who were serving the Austrian empire, attracted hundreds of Catholic Irish medical students to Prague. Denied an education by the Penal Laws at home, they studied at the prestigious medical faculty of Charles University, founded in 1348 as the first European university north of the Alps and east of the Rhine.
One of the few who was to return to Ireland was William James McNeven, who worked in Jervis Street Hospital, Dublin, was a leader of the 1798 rising, joined the Irish Brigade of the French army and ended up as a writer, campaigner for Irish immigrants and professor of obstetrics in New York.
At the opening of the exhibition, the TCD Provost, Dr Thomas Mitchell said: "There were three main groups of Irish emigrants to Bohemia in the 17th and 18th centuries - monks, soldiers and students. In the 18th century the Irish formed the largest group of foreigners in the Prague medical school, making up 10-15 per cent of medical students. Several became very powerful in the school and influenced the number of Irish students entering the university."
The most celebrated was Dr Jacob Smith from Balroe, Co Westmeath, who became personal physician to the Austrian Emperor, dean of the medical faculty and, for one year in 1743, rector of Prague University.
William McNeven from Ballynahown, Co Galway, a relative of the 1798 leader, was appointed to head the medical faculty 10 years later. He was made a baronet by the Emperor and had his palace in Prague built by the famous Italian architect Palliardi.
The names and records of the Irish students in Prague in this exhibition make fascinating reading: Dunlevy from Donegal; de Boyne from Tipperary; John O'Devlin, who was granted his doctorate for his services to the Austrian army in its struggle against the Turks; O'Sheal from Offaly; O'Neill from Tyrone; O'Flanagan from Dublin; Trench from Galway; Maguire from Fermanagh; O'Hehir from Clare; Jacob O'Reilly, who was one of the first doctors to apply vaccination against smallpox; Russell from Limerick; O'Donnell from Sligo; and Adam O'Byrne, who became town physician of Dresden.
Many of these men started as paupers and "had their degrees conferred in less than splendid circumstances", records the excellent guide to the exhibition. "However, whenever the Irish doctors can be traced their work in the Hapsburg lands is highly appreciated, especially in the area of hygiene and preventive medicine."
At the exhibition's opening, the Czech ambassador, Dr Lubos Novy, recalled that Irish-Czech links could be traced as far back as the second century.
Eighteen centuries later the modern links between Dublin and Prague were symbolised by the bestowing of an honorary TCD degree on Dr Karel Maly, rector of Charles University. The TCD Provost will go to Prague next year to have a reciprocal honorary degree bestowed on him.