Mungret
College, how it all began.
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.
The driving force.
In 1850 a young priest of the Diocese of Dromore , Co Down was
received into the order of the Society of Jesus; his name was
Fr. William Ronan. Four years later he went to the
Crimea as spiritual director to the Irish Sisters of Mercy who
were working there as nurses.
On his return to Ireland he gave missions and retreats thoughout
Ireland for the next seventeen years, during which time he became
aware of the need to provide the means for young men to realise
their vocation to the priesthood.
In 1872 he was appointed rector of the church and college at
the Crescent in Limerick, a position he was to occupy for the
next ten years. He continued to think about the posssibility
of setting up a college to provide for those 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 in September 1880. This had eight boys
in its first year and by the end of the second year there were
twenty eight. Clearly a larger building was required.
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.
The Bishop and Lord Emly were trustees of the
estate of Lord Dunraven and he had left £2000
to be used for “catholic purposes”. This was given
to Fr Ronan for the building of a chapel, on condition that
he would match the bequest with a similar amount for college
buildings. The architect was instructed to site the church at
some distance from the then existing buildings, and to make
plans for another building linking the two. With no funds to
pay for this and now sixty years of age , he set out for the
United States from Cobh on the 21st September 1884 in an attempt
to raise funds. He had planned to spend one year, but remained
for two years travelling extensively fund and received a mixed
reception as he travelled extensively. In his prolonged absence
Fr René was appointed Rector, Fr Ronan then returned
to take charge of the apostolics.
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.
The Founding Fathers
Fr William Ronan : Rector
Fr Charles Mc Kenna (1836-1910)
Fr William Sutton (1847-1922)
Fr Maurice Woulfe
Fr Thomas Head
Fr Patrick Hughes
Fr Jean Baptiste René
M. Joseph de Maistre
Abbé l’Héritier
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