WHITE, STEPHEN. - Jesuit and historian, b. at Clonmel (Ireland) in 1573 (or 1574), d. at Galway in 1646.
Having entered the Order in 1596, he was sent to Germany in 1606 and for many years taught theology at Ingolstadt, Dillingen, and Cassel, then moving (1627-28) to Metz. After another twelve years of teaching activity in the French and German colleges of the Order, he was allowed to return to Ireland to assume the direction of the new College of Dublin which, soon closed by the English government, left him free to devote himself to pastoral ministry in the dioceses of Waterford and Lismore.
W.’s reputation is especially connected with his hagiographical and historical works, among which the biographies of Irish saints are of particular value, having been extensively used by the Bollandists in compiling the Acta Sanctorum. Other of his texts, especially theological ones, were published in the Bibliotheca historico-philologico-theologica (Bremen 1719-25). He was also responsible for the discovery, in the libraries of numerous German abbeys, of ancient Irish literary and chronicle monuments, which he published with learned commentaries, marked by a passionate love for his homeland. Evidence of this is his most famous work, the Apologia pro Hibernia adversus Cambri calumnias, composed to refute the arguments of Gerardo del Galles (Lat. Cambria), which, in his judgment, injured Irish honour.