Last week I was on the grounds of my old secondary school, the Brigidine in Mountrath, for the first time in eight years. I parked on the basketball courts and was immediately transported back to PE class, complete with Petronella Ryan’s screeching whistle. I peered in the windows of study rooms one, two and three, remembering how awkward the giant partitions were to fold. I continued to the front door of the closed school and could only stare mournfully at the “Céad Míle Fáilte” sign hanging above the inner entrance, where some of the letters had fallen to the ground. I remembered walking in those doors for the first time as a 12-year-old, absolutely terrified.

I’m sure my peers who went to the Patrician College Ballyfin would feel just as nostalgic – if they had the chance to walk around the grounds of their school, which they don’t, because now it’s now a five-star hotel called Ballyfin Demense which Kimye, among other A-listers, frequent.

To say my parents had an excellent choice of secondary schools on their doorstep would be an understatement. The Brigidine Secondary School Mountrath and the Patrician College in Ballyfin had fantastic reputations, both academically and otherwise, and they took turns in occupying the number one spot on the league tables in Laois. But in 2009 both schools were amalgamated with the Vocational School in Mountrath, relocated to a new site and renamed Mountrath Community School.

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LOcal leader

The reason both schools even existed in the first place was thanks to one man: Bishop Daniel Delany. He founded the Brigidine Sisters and the Patrician Brothers in 1807 and 1808 and also co-founded a seminary in the form of Carlow College. Bishop Daniel Delany was born in a cottage that’s located on the Bennett family farm in Paddock, just outside Mountrath, Co Laois. He received his education thanks to the financial support of a local Church of Ireland family. While he died just six years after founding both orders, the legacy he created was so magnificent that a special ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of his death was held last Tuesday in his homestead, which has been partially and beautifully restored by the Bennett family.

Camross Comhaltas provided a musical backdrop to the ritual of remembrance and Marie Phelan was the MC. A commemorative plaque erected on the wall of the house was unveiled.

Seamus Bennett, in his welcoming address, relayed that when his late father Peter Bennett bought the farm in 1956, he was told by a neighbour: “This house is special – a bishop was born here.” And so the late Peter and his wife Agnes preserved and restored the house.

People came from all over the world to celebrate the bicentenary, including the congregational global leaders of both orders – Sr Louise Cleary from Melbourne and Br Jerome Ellens from India. Br Jerome is based in Puni and is a product of St Patrick’s Secondary School in Chennai in the south of India, a Patrician Brothers school which he credits as the reason he became a brother.

“As a little boy I was singing On Érin’s Green Valleys. And I didn’t know what it meant. Chennai is hot and dusty and I was singing On Érin’s Green Valleys. It was our school song.”

Sr Louise tells Country Living there are 233 Brigidine sisters scattered across Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the US, and that there are nine Brigidine secondary schools in Australia, with five in Melbourne alone. There are both co-ed and all-girls schools and they range in size from 500 to 1,500 pupils. Given the depleting number of Brigidine sisters, Sr Louise says they are working with a new set of trustees to become the trustees in place of the Brigidines.

Future secured

“We’ve done a lot of work with Rome so they will continue to be Catholic providers and we have been putting in place a governance structure which will have, in legal terms, an enduring power of attorney.”

Sr Louise says that unlike the elite Catholic schools in Australia which charge high fees, the Brigidine schools charge small fees because they believe a Catholic education should be accessible to all families.

Br Jerome says there are currently over 200 brothers in the Patrician order, which is scattered across Australia, Papua New Guinea, India, Ireland, Dubai, Qatar, Kenya, Ghana, South Sudan and the USA. The Patricians celebrated their own bicentenary in 2008 by opening The Delany Academy in Ghana. In order to support that foundation, the Patricians have taken over a school in Dubai; the brothers’ salaries from that school are then sent to Ghana to help that mission. Brothers’ salaries from schools in Doha in Qatar and Bangkok in Thailand are also being pooled and sent to Ghana. The results of their efforts are impressive. Every year, 150 new students are admitted into the Ghana school and they expect to have a student body of 850 within four years.

Although leader of the order that founded Ballyfin, Br Jerome has no access to the five-star resort now, although he was given a tour of the premises before it officially opened. He was very impressed: “We couldn’t do what has been done.”

On the matter to hand that day, Br Jerome notes that Bishop Daniel Delany was a man of “great faith, courage and vision”. He mentions that Daniel Delaney had to leave Ireland secretly to study for the priesthood because of the Penal Laws and spent 14 years in France, before returning in disguise.

When the ceremony in Paddock ended, participants made their way to St Fintan’s parish church in Mountrath for a mass of thanksgiving where Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare and Loughlin was the main celebrant.