The French connection
For the first six years of the college a considerable number
of the the members of the community were French :
Pères Eugène Carré, Octave de Bénázé,
Joseph Rousseau, Jean Aubier, Jacques Daniel and the scholastics
Felix Perrin, Sylvain Allenou, Marc Barthélemy
The Pride of Lord Emly
In his speech at the conferring of degrees in Earlfort Terrace,
Dublin in the autumn of 1888 Lord Emly said “ A new college
that I happen to take a particular interest in has been founded
at Mungret. . . .and is , I believe , the only Catholic college
outside Dublin which confines itself altogether to university
education. It has magnificent buildings, ample lecture halls,
and one of the most beautiful chapels in Ireland. At our last
examination the distinguished success of of its students showed
how admirable its teaching must be.”
The Begrudgers
Not everyone at that time held the hard working Jesuits in the
same high esteem. Mungret benefited from public funds by way
of a small annuity for the former Agricultural College , which
had been made over to the Jesuits. Anthony Traill, a future
Provost of Trinity College and a member of the Educational Endowments
Comission which oversaw the endowment for Mungret, referred
darkly to “ a valuable piece of public property left in
the possession of an illegal body of men who had been turned
out of almost every Roman Catholic country in Europe. Many of
these at the time were French refugees ”
Epilogue
Fr Senan Timoney SJ in his Headmaster’s
Address which is published in full in the 1974 Final Mungret
Annual, said the following “ Perhaps I am fortunate, but
I have not yet come across a disgruntled past Mungret boy. The
smile of recognition and the hand of friendship always seem
to be there” and he continues “ I have not the slightest
doubt of the educational apostolate of the Jesuit. This is because
I believe intensely, as I think every Christian must, in the
value of the human person, who must learn so to pass through
the good things of time that he does not lose the things of
eternity. The spiritual, the cultural,the academic, the sporting
must all be synthesised so that the the growth in Christ which
was fostered during the five years spent in Mungret as a boy
may continue throughout a man’s life”.
At the concluding paragraph, he said the following,
“ There are no short-term quick results in true education
and so Mungret will continue to live, as long as a Mungret man
lives who tries with God’s grace to be true to the principles
inculcated there right through the years from 1882 down to 1974”
Further information
The Final Mungret Annual of 1974 , and all the Annuals published
in Mungret are available for inspection at the reading room
of the National Library, (beside Dáil Éireann),
Kildare Street, Dublin . Visitors may also have selected excerpts
photo-copied from the annuals at the Library.
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