Year: 2018

10th September 2018

Yesterday, Sunday (September 9th) Fr Bernard ‘Barney’ McGuckian SJ, Vice Rector of Clongowes, concelebrated Mass in the company of his two brothers, Alan (Bishop of Raphoe) and Michael – both Jesuits. The company was completed by the Rector, Fr Michael Sheil SJ, who – just three days earlier – had presented Fr Barney to the…read article

7th September 2018

An Old Clongownian and a Knight of the Realm On Thursday September 6th Clongowes was privileged to be visited by Sir William Sargent (OC’73) the founder and CEO of the visual effects giant, Framestore. With clients ranging from big Hollywood studios to major brands such as Coca-Cola, Volkswagen and Nokia, Framestore – the world-leading digital story-telling…read article

5th September 2018

Legendary American author Damon Runyon may have quipped that, while ‘the race is not always to the swift that’s how the smart money bets’ most of the time, but the author of Guys and Dolls, had he been on the playing fields of Clongowes today, would have had to admit that there is often more…read article

3rd September 2018

Elements Opening Week At lunchtime on Tuesday 28th of August the corridors of Clongowes Wood College sj became home to the 205th class in the school’s history. While many of the young men will have felt nervous energy course through them as they drove up the beautiful avenue for the first time, the presence of 20 welcoming…read article

1st September 2018

It’s that time of year again, when the young men of Clongowes begin to don the purple and white to represent the school on the rugby field and there is nothing to quicken the pulse quite so much as the sight of 15 young men striding out on to the pitch ready to give their…read article

30th August 2018

On Thursday (30th August) the young gentlemen of Rhetoric 2024 filed into the chapel to take pole position at the front – the 205th Elements class to enter the school in this, our third, century. They were shortly joined by the rest of the students from Rudiments to Rhetoric, the majority returning for another academic year, while…read article

28th August 2018

A day before the new Elements made their first tentative steps in the school and two days in advance of the return of the more seasoned campaigners up the school, the academic and prefecting staff assembled for the first of two staff days to ready themselves for the forthcoming year… The Opening Prayer was led…read article

12th June 2018

Clongowes Wood College wishes Dr Diarmuid O’Driscoll (pictured in the middle) every happiness on this his 100th birthday. Diarmuid came to Clongowes in 1930 and was happy to avail of the NUI matriculation in 1935 to leave at the end of Poetry and to study medicine without having to sit his Leaving Certificate. In those days,…read article

8th June 2018

Time to Reflect and Recharge It is high summer here in Clongowes: sunlight streams through the windows and the classrooms and galleries lie silent. Yet this silence masks the activity taking place in the examination centres where the boys of Rhetoric and Grammar are tackling the Leaving and Junior Certificate examinations. For the sixth year…read article

6th June 2018

On Wednesday, 30th May Mr Declan O’Keeffe taught his last class in Clongowes Wood College having taught his first in September 1981. Before he left Declan addressed the staff and pupils at the final assembly of the year… I first came to work in Clongowes Wood College in a previous century before any of the current…read article