Belvedere College

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'Belvedere College'
Coláiste Belvedere
Crest of Belvedere College
Motto Per Vias Rectas
Latin for 'By Straight Paths'
Established 1832
Location Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1,
Republic of Ireland
Students 920
Principal Gerry Foley
Religious order Jesuits
Homepage http://www.belvederecollege.ie

Belvedere College SJ is a private secondary school for boys located in Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Ireland.

Belvedere College is amongest Ireland's oldest and most prestigious schools. The College was founded in 1832 and celebrated its sesquicentenary (150th anniversary) in 1982. The school currently has in excess of 850 pupils enrolled and has a number of famous alumni in the world of the arts, politics, sport, science and business.

George Augustus Rochfort (1738-1814), who became the Second Earl of Belvedere in 1774, built Belvedere House, one of the most dominant buildings on the school's campus and best surviving examples of Georgian architecture in Ireland.

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[edit] Jesuit Ethos

Belvedere College is run by the Jesuit order. Most of the school's current teaching staff are now lay-persons, although a number of Jesuit priests and brothers take part in the school's administration.

The Jesuit ethos of social justice for all and educating "men for others" are keystones of the Belvedere College culture and education philosophy. For example, some students travel with the Dublin Pilgrimage to Lourdes, France to assist the elderly and the disabled, others take part in an exchange to Calcutta, India where they assist in homes for orphans and street-children. Belvedere's St. Vincent de Paul Society is one of the largest of any secondary school in Ireland, organising activities such as old-folks events and flat/apartment decoration in inner city Dublin. Certain students also undertake a charity walk from the East to the West coasts of Ireland every summer in order to raise funds for blind people and The Temple Street Children's Hospital (which is located near the school).

An annual charitable fundraising event held by the College is the "Belvedere Sleepout", which takes place from December 22 to 24th each year. It is run by a collection of teachers and students from the College to raise funds for the St. Vincent de Paul society in the school. The students fast for the duration of the sleepout. The culmination of the event is a meal in the college's restaurant. In the past, the college has managed to raise over €100,000 for the charity.

Belvedere College has an active alumni association - the Belvedere College Past Pupils' Union, the aim of which is to encourage social interchange among Belvederians and to promote the aims of the Society to which the College belongs. The Union has a number of sub-committees including the Belvedere Youth Club, which provides social, recreational and educational facilities for youth in the Dublin city centre area, and Belvedere Social Services, which provides housing for young vulnerable homeless boys who would otherwise be at grave risk, and facilitates them with opportunities for training and employment.

Potential students undergo an assessment and interview with a faculty member (Belvedere is known for its high academic standards). Although private and fee-paying, the school awards a number of full scholarships each year in furtherance of the school's aim to be socially just.

[edit] Facilities

Extensive facilities at the school include a swimming pool, gymnasium, state-of-the-art science and technology block, library, museum, chapel, tennis courts, theatre, rooftop astro-turf pitch and rugby, cricket and soccer grounds (located on the Distillery Road in Drumcondra, Dublin and on the Navan Road in Cabra, Dublin).

[edit] Sports

Belvedere College has a strong rugby football tradition. In 2005, for the first time in the school's history, they won both the Leinster Junior Cup and Leinster Senior Cup. Only two other schools have won the Leinster Senior Cup more times than Belvedere.

Cricket has also, traditionally, been a strong sport. Belvedere has won both the Leinster Senior and Junior Cups more times than any other Leinster school.

Belvedere have also won the Leinster and All-Ireland schools debating competition on a number of occasions (most recently in (2005)), the Alliance Française debating championship and the last ever series of Blackboard Jungle, a popular television programme on RTÉ.

Belvedere's Lifesaving club is also very successful, with a number of All-Ireland Titles to their credit and students have represented Ireland at International Lifesaving Competitions.

[edit] Science

The promotion of Science has become a priority for Belvedere's Board of Management. Over €7 million Euro has been invested in the Dargan-Maloney Science and technology block. Dr Garret FitzGerald of the University of Pennsylvania last summer offered two scholarships to the two strongest students in the Sciences. The students selected for the 2006 trip were Stephen Duff and Declan Moran. This will become an annual scholarship for Transition Year students who excel in the sciences.

[edit] Culture of Belvedere

The school motto is Per Vias Rectas translating as "By straight paths" and the College aspires to produce "Men for Others". Students write "AMDG" the motto of the Society of Jesus, ie: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, on the top left of pages of their copybooks. This translates as "For the greater glory of God". Until recently the students would write "LDSetBVM" or Laus Deus Semper et Beatum Virginum Maria (Love God forever and the Blessed Virgin Mary) on the bottom right of the same page, but this practice has largely died out. Yet the writing of AMDG in copybooks is still practiced today.

The unofficial school anthem, often heard at rugby matches, is "Only In God", based on Psalm 62 in the Bible. The official anthem is less popular, entitled "Belvedere, Oh Belvedere" it was composed by a past pupil and recorded by the school choir in 1997.

The school yearbook is known as "The Belvederian". The term Belvederian is also sometimes used to refer to attending students and Old Belvederian (OB) for alumni. Old Belvederians normally refer to their graduation by using the name of the final year in the college followed by the year as, for example, "OB 1984".

Belvedere College is the backdrop for much of James Joyce's novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It is a semi-autobiographical piece of work, and the teacher was based on Joyce's own English teacher, George Dempsey. In the book Joyce mentions his involvement in the College Opera which continues today. The College's Dramatic Society performs four times during the academic year. The school recently celebrated the 500th birthday of the patron saint of the college, St. Francis Xavier.

[edit] Notable Alumni

[edit] External links

Jesuit secondary schools in Ireland
Belvedere College • Clongowes Wood College • Crescent College • Gonzaga College • Mungret College • St Stanislaus College • St. Ignatius College •
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