Mungret College

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Mungret College, situated 3 miles west of Limerick, Ireland, near the village of Mungret, was a Jesuit apostolic school and a lay secondary school from 1882 until 1974 when it closed as a school for the last time. The college produced over 1000 priests in that period. It had previously been an agricultural college and a Limerick diocesan seminary until 1888.

The secondary school was relatively small with around 225 boarders and 25 day boarders. Mungret is one of a number of Jesuit schools founded in Ireland.

1 History
2 External links

[edit] History

Eearly Christian Work in the Mungret Area.

The earliest records show that the name 'Mungret' was first used not long after Patrick's apostolic calling to Ireland. There was a very early Christian settlement and college here which drew students in from across Ireland, Britain and Europe. It was a simple growth of huts and homes around the main teaching sanctuary. At its highest point it had over 3000 students. This was not like the later monastries but more like a missionary Bible School. From here students were sent out across Europe carrying the light of the Gospel to dark Europe.

[edit] Pre-1882

In 1858 the Commissioners of Education had opened an agricultural college at Mungret. This was largely due to the influence of Thomas Spring Rice, Lord Mounteagle of Bandon, Chancellor of the Exchequer in England and a good Irish landlord. It was built to accommodate seventy to eighty students but never had more than fourteen students and at times as few as four. In 1877 it was decided to close the college.

It was rented by the Bishop of Limerick for his seminarians for the scholastic year of 1880-1881 and was then vacated.

[edit] Foundation

In 1850 a young priest of the Diocese of Dromore , County Down was received into the order of the Society of Jesus; his name was Fr. William Ronan. In 1872 he was appointed rector of the Sacred Heart Church and Crescent College, Limerick, a position he was to occupy for the next ten years. There he thought about the possibility of setting up a college to provide for unfulfilled vocations in Ireland.

He discovered that a fellow Jesuit in France, in 1865, had started a scheme for the endowment of special colleges in France and Belgium, called apostolic schools, which were supported by benefactors and by the parents of students. He travelled to the Continent to visit these colleges and to seek out an experienced man to take charge of a similar college in Limerick. While staying in a Jesuit house in France , he met Fr Jean Baptiste René, S.J. a member of the community, an English speaker and to the great delight of Fr.Ronan, a former head of the apostolic school at Poitiers. He was also willing to come to Ireland if his Provincial would sanction his departure.

With some difficulty this permisssion was obtained and Fr René was in Limerick for the opening of the apostolic school at Crescent House in September 1880. This had eight boys in its first year and by the end of the second year there were twenty eight. However overcrowding became an issue with the day pupils at Crescent and clearly a larger building was required.

[edit] Mungret

Fr Ronan had been considering the former agricultural college at Mungret as an alternative. However the apostolic school alone was not a viable proposition so he persuaded the Bishop of Limerick to send the diocesan seminary back to Mungret. The apostolics moved to Mungret on the 10th of August 1882, and were joined by the seminarians on September 14th of that year. Fr Ronan was the first Rector and Fr René was in charge of the apostolics. So the college started with thirty-two apostolics and thirty-one seminarians.

Shortly after its founding a new Bishop of Limerick decided to house the seminarians in the city where they would be nearer the cathedral. This reduction in numbers was made up by accepting more lay boys. In the course of time the numbers of lay boys considerably exceeded the numbers of apostolics. At its height the College catered for 267 fulltime and day boarders.

[edit] Closure

In 1974 Mungret College SJ closed and many of its teaching staff transferred to Crescent College another Jesuit school in Limerick out of which Mungret College had originally grown. Dineen & Company purchased Mungret College and its 240 acres of land in 1979 and subsequently purchased additional adjacent land.

RE-OPENED

In 1992 a small group of believers led by Dorothy Hall took on the great burden of purchasing this building believing God was leading them to do so. From the start they had a vision to establish a Bible School, a childrens christian school and a church. After 13 years of prayer and perseverance in fixing up the building this came suddenly to fruition. There is presently over 20 children attending the school where they are taught to a high standard. School of Christ International, founded by B.H. Clendennen, ran its first school in this building in August 2005. And there is now a new church which is being built up in the knowledge of Christ Jesus.

SCHOOL OF CHRIST EUROPE

Mungret is now the European base for School of Christ International which presently has students and schools in about 130 countries. Keith Malcomson from Dromore, Co.Down is the Director for the new Bible School. They run a few schools every year and have the potential to run the school in about 20 different languages within the college. The burden behind the work is to see the church return to the simplicty, purity and power of the early church. The one prayer that ascends daily from these believers is that God would move in mighty Revival across Ireland and raise up a missionary minded church to reach Europe once more.

[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 •