Crescent College - 16th To 18th Centuries

16th To 18th Centuries

The first Jesuit School in Ireland was established at Limerick in 1565 by the Apostolic Visitor of the Holy See, David Woulfe SJ. Woulfe, a Limerick man, was possibly at some stage Knighted for services to the Crown, before leaving Ireland to join the Jesuits at Rome. He was closely related to the city's merchant aristocracy and it was probably for this reason that Limerick was chosen to be a base for the Irish Jesuit mission.

The fourth Jesuit General, Everard Mercurian, had been reluctant to involve the Jesuits directly in the affairs of English possessions, nevertheless Woulfe's Mission was not the first Jesuit presence in Ireland. Some years earlier Ignatius had sent two Jesuits, Paschase Broet and Alfonso Salmeron, to assess the needs and the prospects of a future Jesuit pastoral presence in Ireland. They were based in Donegal under the protection of Lord Tyrconnell. Little, however, was achieved and this early mission came to nothing. In 1559 Pope Paul IV charged Woulfe with a special Apostolic Mission to 'to absolve all manner of lapses from the church, and chiefly heresies and schismatical faults' and to set up Grammar schools if possible and persuade parents to send their children to them. It took Woulfe two years to establish his visitation, and he finally arrived in Ireland with another Irish Jesuit called 'Dermot' in January 1561. Although his mission was supposed to be secret the Queen's Irish Government in Dublin had been kept well informed of his movements by a network of spies on the continent.

Woulfe was discreet at first, living quietly for a time with his cousin, David Arthur, who was Dean of the Diocese of Limerick. Limerick city offered strategic possibilities as a wealthy and fortified trading port, where the Protestant Reformation had not yet taken hold, and was geographically proximite to the turbulant Geraldine Palatinate of Desmond, where it was well known that the Jesuit Order were corresponding with the 14th Earl's cousin, Lord James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, instigator of the first Desmond Rebellion. From this perspective it was a secure base, but it nevertheless took four years for Woulfe to establish the Limerick School, which opened at Castle Lane in 1565. The establishment at Limerick was the first educational mission of the Society of Jesus, and pre-dated the Jesuit missions to South America by some ten years. Woulfe probably taught for a while at the Limerick school but the demands of re-organising the Irish Catholic Church, and introducing the Tridentine reforms, meant that he could not stay long in any one place and he entrusted the foundation to another cousin and Jesuit Scholastic, Edmund Daniel.

Woulfe next became embroiled in the difficult reformation politics of Ireland. He travelled to see Shane O'Neill in Ulster, and was later directy involved in a doomed conspiracy with Lord Fitzmaurice and the 15th Earl of Desmond to land Spanish troops in County Kerry, resulting in terrible slaughter at Smerwick Harbour, Co. Kerry. Woulfe's political activities, and the establishment of Catholic schools under Jesuit management, firstly at Limerick, and later in other towns and cities, represented a significant challenge to the Irish Government of Elizabeth I and marked the strategic importance of Ireland to Rome in its efforts spearhead the counter Reformation and the reforms of the Council of Trent in the Tudor Realms. However in 1567 the government gained an upper hand over the restive Lordships of Ulster and Munster and O'Neill was killed and Lord Desmond imprisoned. Woulfe too was captured and imprisoned at Dublin Castle, and after a period of hardship in captivity he was released and exiled with the aid of an influential English Catholic, Edmund Stuckley.

Despite these external setbacks initially the Limerick school flourished and in 1565 the city Council decided that the masters should be paid an annual salary of ten pounds, but this money was not accepted as it was to be raised as a levy on ships entering and leaving the port. It was therefore decided that the education offered should be free, based only on voluntary contributions, and very much in the spirit of Ignatius's Roman College founded 14 years before, where no fee was requested from pupils. The future primate, Richard Creagh was probably involved in setting up this school as he had been a school master in Limerick. In 1564 Woulfe inveighled him to accept the see of Armagh, though he quickly had to go into exile as he was pursued by both Shane O'Neill and the Dublin Castle Government and could not establish a presence in his Diocese. Whilst abroad he formed friendships with many Irish and English Jesuits on the continent and secured the services of William Good, an English Jesuit, to accompany him on his return to Ireland in 1567.

It was proposed that Good should become Rector of a Catholic University foundation in Ireland and he was admirably fitted for the position, having been late Head Master of Wells Grammar School, under Queen Mary I, and he had held a prebend in Wells Cathedral before flying following Elizabeth's accession in 1562. Given the political situation in Ireland Archibishop Creagh's plans for a Catholic university had to be delayed and instead Fr Good joined Daniel teaching at the Limerick school. A number of Good's reports survive in the Jesuit archives at Rome and he records the earliest example of a school play in Ireland, which was performed on the Feast of St. John in 1566. He also makes reference to the curriculum offered and students, who he described as being piously inclined, were first instructed to read, and progressed to read selected letters of Cicero and other classical texts in Latin. The students copied all the works, as there were no books, and they studied catechism either in English, or in Latin for the Irish speakers. There were no holidays at the school, but boys were withdrawn by their parents at harvest time. Classes took place in very confined space at Castle Lane in the City and demand meant that pupils could only attend class in rotation.

However the prevailing political climate made circumstances difficult. In 1570 Pope Pius V formally excommunicated Elizabeth I resulting in a new wave of repression of Catholicism in Britain and Ireland. This had implications for the Limerick school and in 1571 Daniel was caputured at Youghal, and put into prison. Having refused to take the Act of Supremacy he was put to death at Cork, on the 25 October 1572, becoming the first Jesuit European Martyr. Reports of his execution caused a stir in the Catholic parts of the Continent, and recorded in a number of contemporary woodcuts printed at Prague. This instability necessiated the school to move occasionally outside the city to Kilmallock to avoid the attention of the authorities during times of peril. Good was certainly back in Rome by 1577 and in 1586 the siezure of Earl of Desmond's estates resulted in a new permanent Protestant plantation in Munster, making the continuation of the school impossible for a time. It wasn't until the early 1600s that the school could again re-open in the city, though the Jesuits kept a low profile existence in lodgings here and there. By 1640 a residence could again been established in Castle Lane and the school was occupying a site near St. Mary’s Cathedral, though was again disrupted by the Cromwellian invasion and the Protectorate, and of the forty five active Jesuits throughout the country, only some eighteen managed to avoid capture.

At the restoration the school was again re-established, once more at Castle Lane, and remained opened until the surrender of the city to Williamite forces in 1692. The number of Jesuits in Ireland ebbed and flowed at this time and in 1649 they were 67 including 11 novices, but by 1700 they were only 6 0r 7, recovering to 25 by 1750. As well as Limerick Jesuit houses and schools existed at Athlone, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, Clonmel, Kilkenny, Waterford, New Ross, Wexford, Drogheda as well as Dublin, and Galway. Despite the occasional and unwelcome attention of the authorities, particularly during these turbulent years, the Limerick school was finally forced to close not for religious or confessional reasons, but due to the political difficulties of the Jesuit Order elsewhere, and in 1773 the school and public oratory in Castle Lane, off Athlunkard Street, closed its doors for 86 years following the Papal suppression of the Society of Jesus.

Some commerative inscription stones from Castle Lane, dating from the 16th and 17th Centuries, were built into the external walls of the old Georgian School buildings at the Crescent in Limerick city centre, and may be viewed there. Another stone from the Castle Lane site, inscribed with a cross and the motto IHS, dated 1576, was brought to Dooradoyle in 1973.