St Augustine's College, Dungarvan


St. Augustine's College at Duckspool Abbeyside in Dungarvan is a co-educational secondary school in Ireland. It was founded and is now conducted by the Irish Augustinians. The school recently received a grant of €750,000 in order to give the school a much needed and sought after renovation. The renovation will include a brand new fire alarm system, a new central heating system, a new lighting system, new boys and girls toilets, a disabled toilet, and three completely new science laboratories. The bulk of this construction will take during the summer holidays and was completed in September 2007.
The school encourages its students in many different areas of sport. The school's facilities include a 40 × 20 ft handball alley with glass back wall and viewing gallery, a 60 × 30 ft handball alley, a 120 × 60 ft gym, 6 GAA pitches, 1 soccer pitch, an 8-lane sprint track, a long & triple jump track, shot put, discus and hammer Circles, an all-weather hockey pitch, and also facilities for the high jump, javelin, and pole vault events.
Since 1998 St Augustine's College has competed in a mini-Olympics type of European sporting event known as Superschools. The college hosted the event in 1998 and 2008 and won both times. In the eleven years of the competition, St. Augustine's College have won five times – the only school in Europe to achieve this. Usually schools from eight other countries compete.

Patron saint

The college is named in honour of the 4th-century saint, Augustine of Hippo. Other English-speaking Augustinian Schools with the same patron include Richland, New Jersey; San Diego, California – both in the United States; Manila in the Philippines; a school in Malta, another Irish one in New Ross, and one in Sydney, Australia.
Augustine was a key figure in the doctrinal development of Western Christianity and is often referred to as a "Doctor of the Church" by Roman Catholics. Two of his surviving works, namely "The Confessions" and "The City of God", are regarded as Western classics and are still read by Christians around the world. Augustine is often considered one of the theological fountainheads of Reformation, because of his teaching on salvation and grace, Martin Luther himself also having been an Augustinian friar. Augustine was not a Biblical fundamentalist.

Notable alumni