St Stanislaus College


Rahan St Stanislaus College was a school in Tullabeg, Rahan County Offaly. St Carthage founded a monastery of 800 monks there in 595 before founding his monastery in Lismore. The Presentation Sisters also have a convent in Rahan, Killina, which was founded at the same time as the Jesuits founded St Stanislaus College.

Jesuits in Tullabeg

St Stanislaus College was founded as a boarding school for boys under the age of thirteen in 1818. It was endowed by the O'Briens, a local gentry family, and was intended to cater for upper middle class Catholics, as was the sister college at Clongowes Wood College where most of its pupils would graduate to. The lands were leased to Rev. Charles Aylmer SJ from Maria O'Brien permanently.
In the 1850s, the school was enlarged to take older boys. Cricket was played at the school the first pitch being laid under Fr. Delaney's rectorship and the facilities developed by Father Wisthoff, a German Jesuit, were highly regarded; he also had the Grand Canal widened to allow rowing.

University Preparation

While Fr. William Delany SJ, LLD, was rector 1876 similar to Carlow College and St. Patrick's College, Thurles students were able to be matriculated and examined by the University of London for BA degrees, following the establishment of the Royal University of Ireland in 1882 pupils would progress to the Jesuit UCD, students from Tullabeg it was noted achieved high marks in examinations for the Royal University.

Closure of the School

However, in 1886, the school was closed and the boys were transferred to Clongowes. This may have been because of a shortage of priests, as the Jesuit House in Dromore, Co. Down closed the same year and Mungret College in Limerick had just been established.

Jesuits Novitate

St. Stanislaus College was sometimes titled Domus Probationis et Studiorum Tulliolana by the Jesuits. In 1918, Tullabeg became a formation house for Jesuits novices, where it became affectionately known as "the Bog". Some Jesuits would serve their Tertianship in Tullabeg. Among its Rectors, Very Rev.
William Henry, S.J.. In 1930 some 52 novices were transferred to the Jesuits in Emo Court, and Tullabeg catered for training Jesuits who had completed their University studies. In 1962 the philosophy school was transferred to Jesuit School of Philosophy in Milltown. It was subsequently a retreat house until shortly after Easter 1991, Fr. Brendan Murray was the last rector.

After the Jesuits

The public church was always well attended by congregations right up until it closed. The Novena to St Francis Xavier each Autumn and the Novena to The Sacred Heart in June drew very large crowds. Confessions were held every Saturday all day until the day it closed. The building and grounds remained closed for a while before being bought by a local builder and used as a Nursing Home and a 9-hole golf course. Since then due to problems with an external investor the nursing home was closed and for a while the golf course remained but it too closed a while after. During the time the premises was under administration it was placed under the care of a British security company who failed to secure the property properly. As a result, it wal plundered and vandalised. Lead taken off the roof etc. It was bought since by two people from the midlands. The building is now boarded up but the 9 hole golf course did reopened but has since closed with a new club house and a coffee shop built, there was a restaurant and a bar named The College Bar the bar and driving range remain open to this day. This being March 2012. Kevin A Laheen has written a detailed history of the college called the Jesuits in Tullabeg. Either 3 or 4 volumes. The College as it was known locally was the spiritual heart of the area and is sadly missed. Fr Hyde was a saintly Priest who lived in the college in the early to mid 1900s. He is said to have successfully prayed for the cure of several people and people still pray to him today. Local woman Maureen Finnerty was cured by his prayers from epilepsy. She was left his Priestly stole and many people visited her at her home in Tullabeg until her death to be blessed with the stole. Maureen spent up more than 5 hours each day in prayer. The stole is now in the possession of her son Tom Finnerty from Tullabeg - Aughadonagh, Rahan.
The chapel at Tullabeg with its seven Evie Hone windows was one of the glories of Irish religious art of the twentieth century. They are now housed in the Jesuit Residence at Manresa House, Dublin. The altar was designed by the architect Michael Scott with carved altar front by Laurence Campbell, the altar is now in Mucklagh Catholic church.

Cemetery

The Jesuit Cemetery is beside the rear avenue entrance on the clara side of Rahan, 42 jesuits and one lay college worker are buried here. All remains were left here after the Jesuits departed. Headstones were removed at one stage making the exact location of burial places matching headstones marking them as being unreliable. There was a plaque erected for 8 jesuits buried in the older rahan graveyard before the establishment of the Jesuit Cemetery in 1874.

Notable former pupils of the school

Others associated with Tullabeg include W. H. Grattan Flood who taught music there as well as at Clongowes, the Jesuit and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins is known to have visited Tullabeg, and stayed there on retreat in his final year, and his notes from this retreat are very negative and pessimistic. Fr Thomas A. Finlay, SJ, the priest, writer, editor and economist, taught for a year at the college.
Fr. Peter James Kenny who founded Clongowes was instrumental in the establishment of Tullabeg. Fr. William Sutton S.J. served as rector from 1890-1895. The theologian Professor John J. O'Meara taught in Tullabeg, others who spent time in Tullabeg include Fr. Fergal McGrath SJ, Fr. Edward Coyne SJ and the historian Fr. Francis Shaw SJ. The former confederate chaplain in the American civil war John Bannon ministered at Tullabeg in 1880, after he returned to Ireland and joined the Jesuits. Rev. Alfred Murphy S.J. served as Rector of Tullabeg.
Fr. Donal O'Sullivan SJ who was chairman of the Irish Arts Council, was Rector of the College in the 1940s, and commissioned works by Evie Hone.