THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAINT PATRICK’S COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH by Terence O'Rourke (NUIM Graduate)

On the 5th of June 1795 Maynooth became a centre for education with the establishment of the Royal College of Saint Patrick by an act of the Irish Parliament ‘for the better education of persons professing the Popish or Roman Catholic religion’.  It was founded to train Catholic priests who were in short supply as the Penal Laws had forbidden the education of Catholic priests in Ireland for the previous two centuries.

Although the bishops responsible for the establishment of the college sought after a site in or near Dublin, no such site was forthcoming.  William Robert Fitzgerald (1749-1804), 2nd Duke of Leinster, and his wife, Emilia Olivia (c.1753-98), offered fifty-eight acres of land near their estate at Carton, Maynooth, together with an existing house built (1792) by John Stoyte, their steward.  The college opened to its first students in October 1795 and the first building is still known as Stoyte House.  Michael Stapleton (c.1747-1801), stuccadore and builder of Dublin, oversaw the extension of the house from 1796 to 1800 and Stoyte House was once again extensively remodelled in the 1950s.

Fifty students were initially enrolled, but in the following years the demand from prospective seminarians increased significantly.  By 1820, the college had 350 students and by 1837 the number had risen to 450.  By 1850 it was the largest Catholic seminary in the world.

In the early years the availability of suitable staff and buildings limited the number of entrants; the staffing issue was solved by an intake of staff, both Irish and French, fleeing Revolutionary France while the lack of accommodation required a major building programme undertaken in the following decades.

The first purpose-built building was Stapleton’s extension, known as the Long Corridor, running almost north-south to the rear of Stoyte House.  The proposed master plan was for a square, subsequently named Saint Joseph’s Square, framing the eastern side of which would be Stoyte House and the Long Corridor.

In 1809 the construction of New House, which framed the northern side of the square, was completed.  Dunboyne House, for postgraduate students, was constructed in 1815 and formed the first building of the southern range.  Humanity House completing the southern range was begun in 1822 and completed in 1824.

Although originally intended as a dedicated seminary, the college quickly opened to lay students.  Riverstown Lodge, also built by Stoyte in 1780, was leased for use as the Lay College in 1802 but, by 1817, was made redundant by the opening of the nearby Clongowes Wood.  Riverstown Lodge was subsequently assimilated into the buildings of the seminary and from 1831 to 1833 two further buildings, Rhetoric House and Logic House, were added, all three being used to house the Junior College.

In 1845 the British government provided £30,000 for the further expansion of the college and the architect appointed to the project was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52), the renowned Gothic Revivalist.  Pugin’s master plan called for a second quadrangle, Saint Mary’s Square, but the commission proved a turbulent one.  Pugin writing to his English patron, John Talbot (1791-1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, complained ’There are great difficulties with Maynooth; the grant is quite insufficient for the building’.  Resigning from the project in 1846, Pugin was reappointed in 1847 for a reduced scheme eliminating the financially unviable chapel.

James Joseph McCarthy (1817-82) was later appointed to design a chapel (11803127) on the north side of the square.  Begun in 1875, only the shell was completed at the time of McCarthy’s death.  William Hague (1836-99) oversaw the completion of the chapel, consecrated in 1891, and the interior is without doubt the finest in the college.

 

The almost freestanding tower was added in 1899-1902 with work supervised by Thomas Francis McNamara (1867-1947) following Hague’s death.  The Aula Maxima, or exam hall, was constructed in 1892-3 to the north-east of the chapel.

Later buildings erected within the grounds of the college include the Junior Hospital (1835-6), the Museum (1932), the Pope John Paul II Memorial Library (1984), and a collection of handball alleys (11803122, 11803129).

Click on the name of each building to open the relevant record from the NIAH Kildare County Survey 2003.

Further reading: O’Dwyer, Frederick, “A.W.N. Pugin and St Patrick’s College, Maynooth” in Potterton, Homan (ed.), Irish Arts Review Yearbook Vol. 12 (1996), pp.102-9.