Clongowes Stories

29th April 2020

One hears a lot these days about people, unable to put up with the current anti-covid lockdown – wanting to leave their “prison-space” and head away beyond the imposed 2 kms from home. There is a well-known story of two men fleeing their fear-imposed lockdown. It is told in last Sunday’s Gospel in  St Luke’s…read more

21st April 2020

They all lived together and shared everything in common ……. [Acts 2:44] The first reading of last Sunday’s Mass describes the first Christians – after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost – living together and  sharing everything in common – and recognized as associates of Christ [Acts 4:13] Future generations reading that line…read more

14th April 2020

My Little Friend Anne Marie’s Alleluia! I first met little Anne Marie on this very Easter Monday – 8th April 1985. I was on my first of nearly 20 visits to Lourdes with the Irish Children’s Pilgrimage. She was about 10 or 11 – and, like others with Down’s Syndrome, she was affectionate, tactile, generous…read more

14th April 2020

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The Way of the Cross on Good Friday, 10th April 2020. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]We gathered this year in The College Chapel as a ‘virtual’ school community – unable to attend in person but connected by our faith. Throughout the liturgy, you are invited to follow the Stations of the Cross by the celebrated early 20th Irish…read more

7th April 2020

The other day I saw in a newspaper a photograph of a very busy Grafton Street – it looked a scene from the shop-till-you-drop Christmas shopping madness.  There was a caption underneath with the following three questions: When can we expect normality to return ? When our freedom returns, will it be by degrees –…read more

1st April 2020

A strange question, perhaps – but I hope it may make you think back for a moment and see that special tree in your mind’s eye. I am lucky that – even in these times of lockdown – I don’t have to go very far to actually see mine! I pass it several times a…read more

27th March 2020

Some years ago I spent a few weeks helping out in a parish in the middle of Paris. One morning I switched on to Radio Notre-Dame the station run by the Archdiocese.  The speaker asked a question: “Why do we all love to go to a night club?” He had my attention right away. He…read more

24th March 2020

Rest – read – work/walk – show love – be at peace – pray!   I came across those ten words the other day – in a church notice in Normandy – in a parish on the WWII Landing Beaches. Lion s/mer was liberated by the Royal Ulster Rifles in June 1944 – which gives…read more

20th March 2020

Last Thursday, TY students were visited by guest speaker Alex Hibbert – a polar expedition leader who spent six months living and working among the Polar Eskimos of remote northwest Greenland. The boys listened on intently as Alex recounted his journey into some of the harshest environments known to man. He explained that he had…read more

18th March 2020

On Thursday 5th March, The Kildare Local Enterprise Office Student Enterprise Awards took place in the Killashee House Hotel, Naas. Clongowes was represented by two mini-companies; Talk Native and Womba Milkshakes – the latter is run by Transition Year students as part of their Duck Push fundraising efforts for Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin. The…read more