St. Patrick's College
The Birth of Carlow College
Part 1
By Rev. P. J. Brophy
IN the story of nations there are moments
when a sudden uprush of energy rallies the
national will-to-survive against the forces of
decay.
Such a moment came in Ireland during the
reign of Elizabeth and later on against the
Commonwealth.
In neither case was the effort
to throw off Tudor or
Cromwellian domination
successful. Weakened by these strenuous wars
which culminated in the flight of
the Earls and the flight of
the Wild Geese after the Treaty of
Limerick, the Irish people entered
upon what must be regarded as the most depressed period
of their existence.
The great revolution of 1688 in England
was the rejection of the absolute monarchy of
the Stuarts. It was engineered by a small
clique who thereby seized power for themselves.
The new regime was not accepted in Ireland.
The Irish were attached to the Stuarts, whom
they regarded as champions of Catholicism
against the Protestant sovereigns William and
Mary.
The Stuarts
In Scotland affection for the Stuarts was
the expression of nationalistic rather than
religious aspirations. Ireland and Scotland
were thus regarded with suspicion. The Stuarts
had taken refuge in France and
later some of them went to
live in Rome. The tombs of
several members of the family may be seen in
St. Peter's in Rome. In the eyes
of the Protestant rulers in England Catholicism and loyalty
to the Stuarts went hand in hand.
It was in an attempt to do away with this menace to their
position that the penal laws were
introduced into Ireland.
These laws remained in force throughout
the eighteenth century. So moderate a writer
as Edmund Burke has written this of the penal
code: "It was a complete system, full of coherence
and consistency; well digested and well
composed in all its parts. It was a machine of
wise and elaborate contrivance; and as well
fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and
degradation of a people, and of the debasement
in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded
from the perverted ingenuity of man."
Under the repressive influence of these
savage laws the Irish people seemed doomed to
extinction. A
heavy cloud of depression hung
over the country and the voice of the Irish
seemed to be stilled for ever. The second half of
the eighteenth century saw some rays of hope
on the horizon. For one thing the hopes of a
Stuart rising had been dashed in the '45. Then
the will-to-live made the Irish bolder and they
began to want to throw off their
chains.
Democratic ideas were being made popular
in France, were being discussed in
England and soon would be
put into action in America. The declaration of Independence disturbed
the complacency of the
English Whigs; it gave heart to
the submerged Irish nation.
From 1770 onwards there are signs of life
and vigour and even demands for justice and
fair dealing. The
pioneers were the merchants
of the seaports who had grown wealthy by
trading with the continent when every other
avenue of advancement was closed to them.
Tentative efforts were made by the Catholic
clergy to improve on the hedge schools. No
Catholic school was permitted. All priests were
educated illegally abroad in Spain, France, Italy or the Low
Countries.
Only in 1782 did the law make it possible
for Catholics to open a school and even then
dependent on the will of the
Protestant clergy. In spite
of a hundred years of unexampled misgovernment
the Irish experienced at the end of
the XVIIIth century a revival of
energy which made possible
the Ireland of to-day.
No need was greater than that of the people
for education. The new schools were
organised by the clergy who emerged from the
penal day underworld as the
natural leaders of the
nation. We are here concerned with one of
these schools, and that the eldest,
still carrying on the work
it was opened to do.in 1793.
In 1760 the Lord Chancellor declared from the Bench that "The Law does
not presume any such person to
exist as an Irish Roman Catholic." In 1782 it had to admit the
fact of their existence and it
conceded to them under conditions
the right to open schools. In 1787 an
academy for Latin, Greek, French,
Philosophy was opened by
the P.P. of Tipperary by
licence of the Protestant Archbishop of Cashel.
A year later a young lady trained
at a convent in Cork had
opened a school in Thurles. A protestant
licence was issued to the foundress in
1799.
It was sometimes difficult to secure this
licence. The Protestant Bishop of Meath would
not grant it nor was his opposite number in
Leighlin any more liberal.
St. Patrick's College
First School
The first school opened by Catholics in
County Carlow was at Leighlinbridge where it
functioned in 1789. A newspaper of
September 9 carried a list of prize-winners—three from the
class for Protestant Catechism and
eight for the two classes in
the Principles of the R.C. Religion.
The examiners ere the Rev. Henry
Stuart, Rev. Dean Brophy,
Rev. John Robinson, Colonel
Herring,
The Catholic Bishop Dr. James Keeffe was
anxious to open a school at Tullow not merely
for the education of youth but also to train
priests at home in Ireland. He had a distrust of
the French seminaries or should we say rather
of the principles of revolution which were being
canvassed in France.
‘He thought of erecting in Ireland a college
for the training and educating of a domestic
priesthood' (J.K.L.) He failed to
secure a site at Tullow and
removed to Carlow. Here he took
up his residence at the house in
Brown Street which faces Charlotte Street. He entered into
negotiations for the purchase of
land and had the
satisfaction of leasing ' Winnett's field situate
near the town of Carlow . . .' together with all the buildings
and improvements now made or
hereafter to be made thereon, from William
Fishbourne.
This is the site of the college buildings and
comprised four acres bounded on the east by
William. Fishbourne's holding and the chapel lane, on the west partly
by Robert Browne's
holding and the chapel lane, on the north by William Bernard's holding
and on the south by
the Factory Gardens. The lease, dated September
30, 1786, grants the lands 'now in the
possession of the said James Keeffe from the
25th day of March last past for and during the
term, time and space of 999 years.'
There may have been some buildings on the plot. Entrance was probably
from Tullow Street,
perhaps through Lowry's Lane. The workmen
were active before the lease was drawn up* An
item from Leinster Journal of November 1786
informs the reader. "We are informed that the
Institution will answer every
purpose intended. It is
proposed that two or three hundred students
shall be the number of the Institution, to
be enlarged according to the
capability of the funds and
the liberality of the subscribers." Clearly high hopes were
entertained for the new school. Its
founder Dr. Keeffe was now advanced
at Paris where he was ordained
about 1770.
He was given charge of Graignamanagh
parish and was appointed Parish Priest of
Carlow in 1787, the year of Bishop Keeffe's
death. Bishop Keeffe had bequeathed his property
in Carlow to Bishop Delany and Father Staunton. When Father Staunton
welcomed the
first students to the new college it was in the
large central block that they were received—'a
large handsome edifice, nearly 120
feet long, 26-feet wide in
the central part, 36 feet deep in
each end or wing consisting of
four storeys above the
surface besides underground apartments
for servants' kitchen, cellarage.
'The first storey contained a spacious hall for teaching, refectory,
parlour and three upper
stories, seventeen commodious bed-chambers for
Superiors, Professors and students on each floor
—51 in all.' There were 37 students in the first
year, sixty in the second year.
Earliest Students
One professor, Rev. John Kelly, and two teachers, James Walsh and
Peter Phelan, helped
Father Staunton in 1793. In 1794 there were
five professors as well as the President.
These
in years. He died in 1787
and was succeeded by his co-adjutor
Bishop Daniel Delany.
College Opening
The opening of the college was postponed
because the Protestant Bishop of Leighlin and
Ferns would not grant a licence.
In 1792 an Act of Parliament made such a licence unnecessary
and doors opened on October 1,
1793. How was the new institute financed? Entirely by the contributions
of priests and people of the diocese.
Bearing in mind the poverty of the generality
of Catholics at the time their generosity
bordered on heroism. The man who was placed
at the head of the college hailed from Co. Kilkenny.
Henry Staunton, born in 1746, studied included three French refugee
priests who had
quitted their country because of the Terror.
The earliest students came from Carlow,
Donegal, Wexford, Leix, Kildare,
Dublin, Meath, Roscommon, Wicklow, Cork, Kilkenny, Galway,
Waterford, Tipperary, Kerry, and
the college has never lost
this national character in its
recruitment. Secular studies and
ecclesiastical sciences were pursued side by side.
"So great is the assiduity of the conductors of the R.C. College
building near this town
that the workmen are employed on the fourth
or attic storey, and it is expected that they will
have the shell of the great building completed in
a few weeks." So runs a letter from
Carlow published in the
Freeman's Journal of September
22, 1785.
The numbers increased and new buildings
had to be erected. An addition to the main block
was under construction in 1817 and a new lay
college to accommodate 100 boys was
ready by 1819. This is the
S. wing. A chapel for the
ecclesiastics was raised on the N. in 1824.
Two ball courts and yard gateway
were added in 1821.
The main North wing was built in 1824-27.
The only other important addition to the fabric
of the college was the erection of the chapel of
the Sacred Heart in the Hiberno Romanesque
style to mark the centenary of the college.
The lay school enjoyed a considerable
reputation. Its annual prize day was reported
in the daily papers and many eminent men were
formed here. One thinks of Richard Dalton
Williams, William A. Byrne, John O'Leary,
Cardinal Paul Cullen, Maurice Lenihan, the historian
of Limerick. In 1847 a preparatory
school was opened at Knockbeg to extend the
educational facilities offered by Carlow College.
It was felt that the needs of ecclesiastical
and lay college were rather different. In 1892
the lay college was transferred to Knockbeg.
Thus came to an end a century of close association
between town and college. Very many of
the old families of Carlow had sent their sons
to be educated in the college which had up to then played a big part
in the life of the town.
The transfer of the lay college to Knockbeg
brought to an end these age-old links forged by
the strong personalities of Dean
Staunton, Dr. Andrew
Fitzgerald, who succeeded him as President
of the college in 1814, and Fr. James
Doyle, the future J.K.L. Education
and the national struggle
went hand in hand.
Source: Carloviana. Journal
of the Old Carlow Society Vol. 1. No. 4, New Series, Dec. 1956. Pages
33 - 36
