Loftus, Adam (c.1533–1606)

English-born Protestant archbishop of Dublin 1567–1606 and founder of Ireland's first university, Trinity College, Dublin, in 1592. Though often portrayed as an insensitive enforcer of the Elizabethan Reformation and as a devious self-promoter and nepotist, Loftus is now regarded as a shrewd and able administrator whose attempts to persuade his clergy to accept doctrinal change were hampered both by the entrenched conservative resistance and by the indifference and occasional opposition of several secular governors.

Loftus came to acknowledge the defeat of his efforts among the Dublin clergy and laity in the 1580s, but his greatest achievement came with the establishment of Trinity College, which was intended to serve as a seminary for an indigenous Protestant clergy. By the time of his death, however, the college had abandoned its missionary ambitions and had become a centre of Puritan exclusiveness.