James Archer (Jesuit)

Archer, James
Born	1550 Ireland
Died	15 February 1620 Santiago de Compostella, Spain

James Archer (1550–1620) was an Irish member of the Society of Jesus and played a controversial role in the Nine Years War, during the Tudor conquest of his native country. In the final decade of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I he became a leading hate figure in English government propaganda, but his lasting achievement was in the establishment of Irish seminaries in continental Europe as part of the counter reformation.

Archer came from an Anglo-Norman family in county Kilkenny. He may have attended the grammar school in the county town, which had been established in 1555 under Peter White, a fellow of Oxford University. David Wolfe, papal nuncio to Ireland, had been evangelizing in south Leinster in this period, although there is no evidence that he came in contact with Archer. Archer entered the seminary college of Louvain around the year 1564, when Nicholas Sanders was in charge. In his maturity, he was described as tall, of dark complexion, with a long, thin face.

Archer took a degree of Master of Arts and returned to Ireland in March 1577. Later the same year his presence about Waterford and Clonmel was reported to the queen's secretary, Francis Walsingham, by the President of Munster, William Drury. In the report Archer was described as a "principal prelate" and "a detestable enemy to the Word of God". Drury also claimed that en route to Ireland Archer had "taught all the way betwixt Rye and Bristol [in England] against our religion and caused a number to despair".

In 1579, the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald landed a papal invasion force at Smerwick in modern-day County Kerry in the company of Sanders. Fitzmaurice proceeded to Holy Cross in County Tipperary via Kilmallock, and it is possible that Archer, who was in the vicinity, was attached to his forces. Fitzmaurice was killed during this journey.

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