James Archer (Jesuit)

James Archer (1550–1620) was an Irish Roman Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus who played a highly controversial role in both the Nine Years War and in the military resistance to both the House of Tudor's religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the Elizabethan wars against both Gaelic Ireland and the Irish clans. During the final decade of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Archer became a leading figure of hate in the anti-Catholic propaganda of the English government, but his most lasting achievement was his role in the establishment and strengthening of the Irish Colleges in Catholic Europe during the Counter-Reformation.