Contribution of the Vincentians to Catholic education in Ireland and England

Abstract

This article is an account of the actions and achievements, i.e. the ‘contribution’, of the Ireland Province of the Vincentian Congregation, known officially as ‘the Congregation of the Mission’, in respect of Catholic education in Ireland and England. The approach is, first, to outline the motives and intentions of the Vincentian fathers, i.e. their practical understanding of their ‘mission’, especially in education. Given the title of the Congregation, the word ‘mission’ obviously plays a big part in their thinking. We will proceed by focussing on the three principal and longstanding kinds of Vincentian educational involvement: secondary education, priestly formation and teacher training. Finally, the article will further examine the mission intentions of the Vincentians and the consequences of their actions in order to discern what, in the end – and as lack of new vocations is obliging them to hand on their educational institutions to other agencies – may be their lasting contribution to Catholic education.

Keywords:

• mission
• education
• Catholic
• Vincentian
• Ireland
• England

Acknowledgements

The most useful sources for the preparation of this article were James Murphy's and Kevin Condon's books, various articles in Colloque, Tadgh O Ceallaigh's monograph and James Kelly's edited collection. The author would like to thank Thomas Davitt, James Murphy, Richard McCullen, Felix Larkin and Robert Whiteside for their comments and corrections. He is also grateful to the Editorial Board of International Studies in Catholic Education for their suggestions and advice. Errors of fact or judgement are the author's alone.

Notes on contributor

Dr Joseph McCann is from New York, and was educated in Catholic elementary school in that city. He attended secondary school at St Paul's College, Raheny, Dublin, University College Dublin and the Vincentian Novitiate and Seminary until ordination. For 16 years he has taught at St Paul's Raheny and St Patrick's Armagh, and for the next 30 years at St Patrick's Drumcondra and All Hallows College. His postgraduate work was at Trinity College, Dublin and in Teachers College of Columbia University, New York. He has published in the area of religious education and church organization.

Notes

1. During the aftermath of the 1641 Confederacy of Kilkenny, the Cromwellian campaign resulted in the martyrdom of Catholic priests, brothers and laity because they were Catholic. One of these was Thady Lee, a seminarian of the Congregation of Mission, who came from Limerick. Some other members of the Congregation escaped to France safely.

2. There was suspicion of clergy being educated in the European seminaries which had received Irish students because they would return to Ireland with revolutionary ideas. Hence, the English government at this time (1790s) was willing to aid the foundation of an Irish seminary.

3. This is a combination of two of James H. Murphy's phases: 1867–1922 and 1922–1959.

4. Following the old adage ‘England's trouble is Ireland's opportunity’, the advocates of physical force republicanism – Irish Republican Brotherhood and Citizen Army –embarked on an armed rising in Easter 1916 while England was in the throes of the Great War. They occupied the centre of Dublin, declared a Republic and prepared to resist the Crown forces indefinitely. The rebellion lasted a week. It failed to ignite the country in outright revolution. The execution of the leaders by firing squad caused widespread public revulsion and subsequently led to the successful war of independence (1918–1922).

5. Castleknock College was a boarding school, and there were doubts if the government funding scheme would be sufficient. Most boarding schools remained outside the ‘Free Education’ arrangements.

6. St Paul's College, the other Vincentian school in the Republic but a day-school, did enter the scheme.

7. The Gospel context is Matthew 16:4 ‘You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.’ The Vatican Council stated: ‘The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel’ (Vatican Council [1965] Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, par 4).

8. There had been many local and brief famines in Ireland previously, but in the winter of 1845, when the potato crop succumbed to blight, the Irish peasant population was particularly vulnerable. The potato was the staple crop and when blight was followed by disease, the crisis became a calamity. More died of illness than of hunger, it was observed. Exacerbated by a laissez-faire economic policy and inept famine relief by the British government, the Great Famine escalated into a national disaster which reduced the Irish population by almost a quarter.

9. In common with university education elsewhere, there is ongoing debate about the place of the humanities in the face of falling budgets, rising demands and higher standards. Furthermore, funding a religious third-level Irish college, inside or outside the public system, is a substantial challenge.

10. Later O'Sullivan became the father of a Vincentian Priest-Teacher with the same name.

11. John McGahern strikes a critical note about the education in the College in his autobiography.

12. The Irish College in Paris was one of more than 40 establishments for Irish seminarians and university students in Europe after the Reformation. Through the centuries, it moved location several times, evolved from a residence to college to a traditional seminary, survived a number of revolutions and three wars to be made available to the Irish nation in 2002 as an Irish Cultural Centre in Paris in the Rue des Irlandais.

13. See Bryk, Lee, and Holland (1993) for an example of such research conducted in USA Catholic High Schools.