Belvedere College

Belvedere College SJ
Coláiste Belvedere
Location
6 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1, D01 TK25,
Republic of Ireland
Coordinates 53°21′21″N 6°15′43″W / 53.355732°N 6.261936°W / 53.355732; -6.261936Coordinates: 53°21′21″N 6°15′43″W / 53.355732°N 6.261936°W / 53.355732; -6.261936
Information
Type Independent
Motto Per vias rectas
(By straight paths)
Religious affiliation(s) Roman Catholic
Society of Jesus
Established 1832 (1832)
Headmaster Gerry G. Foley
Gender Male
Number of students 1005
Colour(s)          Black and white
Former pupils Old Belvederians
Website belvederecollege.ie

View of yard from Foyer

Belvedere College SJ is an independent Jesuit secondary school for boys in Dublin, Ireland. The school has numerous alumni in the arts, politics, sports, science, and business.

History

The Society of Jesus has been active in the area around Hardwicke Street since 1790. They founded St Francis Xavier's College in a disused convent on Hardwicke Street with nine students in 1832, three years after Catholic Emancipation, making it the second oldest Catholic college in Ireland for lay students (after Belvedere's sister college - Clongowes Wood College). In 1841, the Jesuits purchased Belvedere House (on neighbouring Great Denmark Street) which gave the College its name. George Augustus Rochfort (1738–1814), who became the Second Earl of Belvedere in 1774, built Belvedere House, whose interior decoration was carried out by Michael Stapleton, a leading stucco craftsman of his time.[1]

The college was caught up in the events of the 1916 Rising, when the British military opened fire at the Jesuit residence.[2][3] The Jesuits at Belvedere and the neighbouring Gardiner Street Community helped the wounded and distributed food across the locality.

A museum with an archive was opened in 2002, dedicated to the history of Belvedere and its past pupils.[4]

Charitable activities

The school has a wide range of charitable activities. Some students travel with the annual Dublin Diocesan, Meath Diocesan and Oblate Pilgrimages to Lourdes, France, to assist the elderly and the disabled. Others take part in an exchange programme with students of Saint Xavier's Collegiate School in Calcutta, India, where they assist in homes for orphans and street-children. Belvedere's St Vincent de Paul Society is one of the largest among secondary schools in Ireland, organising activities such as old-folks events and a weekly soup run in inner city Dublin. Beginning in 1981, some students have undertaken a charity walk from Dublin to Galway each summer to raise funds for Irish Guide Dogs For The Blind, St Francis Hospice, and The Temple Street Children's Hospital (which is located near the school). The "block-pull", as it is known, has raised over €70,000 in a single event.[5]

An annual charitable fundraising event held by the college is the "Belvedere Sleep-Out", which takes place from 22 to 24 December each year. Students "go homeless" on Dublin's O'Connell Street for three3 days and two nights.[6] The Sleep-Out is run primarily by students from the college, with the assistance of a number of teachers and past pupils, to raise funds for Focus Ireland, The Home Again Society, and Father Peter McVerry's Society for homeless boys. The students fast for 24 hours during the Sleep-Out. The culmination is Christmas Eve midnight mass in the college chapel. In 2015, the event raised over €189,000 over the Christmas period for the charities.[7] This record was broken in 2016, when the event raised €225,021 for the charities.[8]

Belvedere College has an active alumni association, the Belvedere College Past Pupils' Union, the aim of which is to encourage interchange among Belvederians and to assist the needy in the local populace. The Union has a number of sub-committees including the Belvedere Youth Club, which provides social, recreational, and educational facilities for youth in the Dublin city center area, and Belvedere Social Services, which provides housing for vulnerable homeless boys, assisting them with job training and employment. In 2010–11, Belvedere College Union established Belvedere alumni networks in the US and the UK to support past pupils abroad and to assist with fundraising projects for the college including the college's social integration scheme (SIS).

Facilities

The college has many interactive white boards, three computer labs, cabled and wireless networking to every classroom, and many other IT features including dedicated networks for the library, special education, careers, music, and art.

Other facilities include a swimming pool, gym, restaurant, refectory, music suite, learning resource centre, museum, chapel, oratory, tennis courts, and rugby, cricket, and soccer pitches.

The school also has a professional standard theatre, the O'Reilly Theatre, which is used to stage school plays and musicals but has also been used by RTÉ, TV3 and an assortment of dramatic organisations.

In 2004, the college opened the Dargan Moloney Science and Technology Block, which boasts state-of-the-art laboratories, lecture theatres and IT hubs. Atop the Theatre and Science and Technology Block sits a rooftop astro turf pitch which offers panoramic views of Dublin city and is mainly used for PE class as well as training for rugby and soccer teams. Directly across the courtyard, on the rooftop of the Kerr Wing is the running track, another example of innovative use of limited city centre space.

Sports

In October 2013 Belvedere held the all-Ireland schools senior track and field trophy having won the title in the previous seven years. They also hold numerous other titles at Leinster and West Leinster levels. Field sports are the traditional strength of the school.[9]

Belvedere is the most successful cricket school in the province, having won 35 Leinster Senior Cricket Schools Cup titles.[10]

Belvedere has a strong rugby union football tradition, being one of the traditional "Big Three", along with Blackrock College and Terenure College. In 2005, for the first time in the school's history, they won both the Leinster Junior Cup and Leinster Senior Cup.

Belvedere, with 12 titles, sit second in the Leinster Senior Cup roll of honour behind Blackrock College (68). Their latest triumph came on March 17, 2017, when Belvedere beat Blackrock College 10-3 at the RDS.[11]

Other activities

The school has debating societies in the English, Irish, Spanish, German, and French languages, with German debating experiencing something of a revival in autumn 2013. Belvedere has won the all-Ireland schools debating competition (2005 among other years), the Denny Leinster School's Senior Debating Championship in 2010, the L&H society Leinster Junior debating competition, and also the Alliance Française debating championship and Leinster Irish debating final.

Belvedere was successful in the last ever series of Blackboard Jungle, a popular television programme on RTÉ.

The school's longstanding Concert Choir hosts the Annual Christmas Carol Service in December, and the Annual Musical Evening in May. The Choir have undertaken recordings in RTÉ, and has been successful at both the Feis Ceoil and the Wesley Feis. The College orchestra has won events at both the Wesley Feis and the Feis Ceoil.

The school has an active urban farm in the school which grows vegetables and houses bees. The farm won the Global High Schools Europe Category at the Zayed Future Energy Prize in 2017.

Drama

Drama productions form an integral part of Belvedere's year.[12] Each academic year, there are four performances: a Junior Musical, a Senior Musical, a Drama Society production, and a First Year Play. Productions have included Les Misérables (school edition) in 2004, and the stage adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials in 2007. Other productions of note include Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Bugsy Malone, The Adventures of Roderick Random, David Copperfield, Aladdin, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Wind in the Willows, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Treasure Island, Lord of the Rings, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Addams Family and The Pirates of Penzance.

In 2016, an original play entitled Children of the Rising was staged at the school. The play was written by a member of staff and was nominated for a Bord Gáis Energy Student Theatre Award for Best Overall Play.[13] The play was based on the book Children of The Rising by Joe Duffy.

2017 saw the international blockbuster musical Les Miserables return to the O’Reilly Theatre for the third time.

Science

The promotion of science has become a priority for Belvedere's Board of Management. Over €7 million has been invested in the Dargan-Maloney Science and Technology block. Garret A. FitzGerald, an Old Belvederian and Senior faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, has instituted an annual, five-week scholarship for two students who excel in Transition Year science.[14]

Culture of Belvedere

New entrance

Belvedere College is run by the Jesuit order. Most of the school's teaching staff are lay-persons, although a number of Jesuit priests and brothers assist with administration and chaplaincy.

The school motto is Per Vias Rectas – "By Straight Paths" – and the college aspires to produce "Men for Others". Students often write "AMDG" for Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, "For the greater glory of God", the motto of the Society of Jesus, on the top left of pages of their copybooks. They formerly also wrote "LDSetBVM" or Laus Deo Semper et Beatae Virgini Mariae ("Praise to God forever and to the Blessed Virgin Mary") on the bottom right of the same page.

The students are assigned to one of six lines or houses, mainly named after Jesuits who were either famous or had an association with Belvedere: Loyola, Xavier, Aylmer, Kenny, Finlay and Scully. Years are named after the progression in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum: Elements, Rudiments, Grammar, Syntax, Poetry, and Rhetoric. Each form except Rhetoric has a captain and vice-captain.

The unofficial school anthem, often heard at rugby matches, is "Only In God", based on Psalm 62 in the Bible. The song was first sung at rugby matches during the 1995 and 1996 Senior Cup Campaigns. The official, less popular anthem, "Belvedere, Oh Belvedere", was composed by a past pupil and recorded by the school choir in 1997. The school's yearbook is The Belvederian. The term "Belvederian" is also sometimes used to refer to current students and "Old Belvederian" (OB) for alumni. Old Belvederians normally refer to their graduation by using "OB" followed by their final year in the college, for example, "OB 1984".

Belvedere College is the backdrop for much of James Joyce's novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It is a semi-autobiographical piece of work and the teacher, Mr Tate, was based on Joyce's own English teacher, George Dempsey. In the book Joyce mentions his involvement in the College Opera which continues today.[15][16]

Notable past pupils

Alumni and teachers at the College played a major role in the creation of modern Irish literature (James Joyce, Austin Clarke, the foundation of Ireland's National Theatre), the standardisation of the Irish language (de Bhaldraithe), as well as the Irish independence movement – both the 1916 Rising (Joseph Mary Plunkett, Éamon de Valera) and the Irish War of Independence (Éamon de Valera, Cathal Brugha, Kevin Barry). The College's notable alumni and former faculty include two Presidents of Ireland, three Taoisigh (Irish Prime Ministers), one Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Lower House of the Irish Parliament), several cabinet ministers, one Blessed, one Cardinal, one Archbishop, one signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, one Supreme Court Justice, one Olympic medallist, twenty-eight Irish international rugby players and numerous notable figures in the world of the arts, academia and business, as detailed below.

Notable faculty

  • Éamon de Valera – Taoiseach and President of Ireland
  • George Dempsey – model for Mr. Tate in Joyce's Portrait of an Artist
  • Fr. Tom Scully S.J. – founder of Catholic Housing Aid Society

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lucey, Conor (2007). The Stapleton Collection: Designs for the Irish neoclassical interior. Tralee: Churchill Press. ISBN 978-0-9550246-2-7.
  2. ↑ John Bowman and Ronan O'Donoghue (eds.), Portraits : Belvedere College Dublin 1832-1982, (Dublin, 1982)
  3. ↑ Oliver Murphy, The cruel clouds of war : a book of the sixty-eight former pupils and teachers of Belvedere College S.J. who lost their lives in the military conflicts of the 20th century, (Dublin, 2003)
  4. 1 2 "History in the making at Belvedere College".
  5. ↑ Consulting, BestSoft. "Clubs and Societies - Belvedere College".
  6. ↑ Belvedere College Sleep-out 2017
  7. ↑ "Belvedere Sleep-Out raises €178,000 for homeless charities - Independent.ie".
  8. ↑ "Recent News - Belvedere College S.J." www.belvederecollege.ie. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
  9. ↑ AthleticsIreland 1916-2015
  10. ↑ "Leinster Schools Senior League - Cricket Leinster".
  11. ↑ "Belvedere secure an 11th Leinster Schools Senior Cup triumph". Irish Independent. 13 March 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
  12. ↑ "O'Reilly Theatre".
  13. ↑ "Shortlist 2017 - Bord Gáis Energy Student Theatre Awards". Bord Gáis Energy Student Theatre Awards. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
  14. ↑
  15. ↑ Critical companion to James Joyce: a literary reference to his life and work, by A. Nicholas Fargnoli and Michael Patrick Gillespie. ISBN 978-0-8160-6689-6
  16. ↑ See also the contribution entitled "Heresy in his Essay" in Portraits: Belvedere College Dublin 1832-1982, pub. Gill & MacMillan, 1982, Ed. John Bowman & Ronan O'Donoghue
  17. ↑ "Thomas Bodkin".
  18. ↑ "Collection List No. 83: Austin Clarke Papers" (PDF). National Library of Ireland. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  19. ↑ "Harry Clarke - Biography". Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  20. ↑ "Tim Patrick Coogan".
  21. ↑ "UCD Archives: Devlin, Denis". University College Dublin.
  22. ↑ "List of Dempsey Prize winners". Belvedere College. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  23. ↑ "Description of painting "An Avenue of Trees Oil on board"". adams.ie. Adam's Auctioneers. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  24. ↑ "Glover, James Mackey", in Who's Who (London: A. & C. Black, 1919), p. 964
  25. 1 2 "iTunes Preview - JJ72". iTunes. Apple, Inc. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  26. ↑ "Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1940". Irish Architectural Archive. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  27. ↑ James Joyce profile Archived February 7, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  28. ↑ "Belvedere College allowed John O'Conor to miss two hours' school so he could attend piano lessons". Irish Times. 28 January 1997. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  29. ↑ "Jimmy O'Dea died 50 years ago". Ireland's Own. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  30. ↑ "O'RIORDAN, Conal Holmes O'Connell". An Electronic Version of A Guide to Irish Fiction 1650 - 1900. An Foras Feasa, NUI Maynooth. Archived from the original on 8 April 2015. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  31. ↑ "From his stage debut in a nativity 15 years ago to the star of the $1bn Transformers franchise, Wicklow actor Jack Reynor's rise has been dizzying". Daily Mail. 20 January 2013. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  32. ↑ "Archived version of Sam Stephenson Obituary". The Times (London). Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  33. ↑ "Mervyn Wall - Former Member | Aosdana". Aosdana. Arts Council (Ireland). Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  34. ↑ "Rare photo of Kevin Barry's rugby days discovered".
  35. ↑ "Belvedere College S.J." (PDF).
  36. ↑ "Revealed: top schools league table - Independent.ie".
  37. ↑ Melaugh, Dr Martin. "CAIN: People: Biographies of People Prominent During 'the Troubles' - F".
  38. ↑ "Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman dies".
  39. ↑ "I taught Brian Latin when he was a little boy, and he taught me the... Language of courage - Independent.ie".
  40. ↑ Department of Foreign Affairs Archived February 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  41. ↑ "More than the men of 1916 William Martin Murphy defined the ethos of the new Ireland".
  42. ↑ http://www.rc.net/wcc/ireland/plunkett.htm%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
  43. ↑ Ryan, Philip (14 June 2017). "Barrister Seamus Woulfe to replace Maire Whelan as Attorney General". Irish Independent. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  44. ↑ Koch, John T. "Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia. Vol. 1-". ABC-CLIO – via Google Books.
  45. ↑ Yeates, P. (2000). Lockout: Dublin 1913. St. Martin's Press. p. 336. ISBN 9780312238902. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  46. ↑ Dublin, The Chancellor, Trinity College. "The Chancellor : Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland".
  47. ↑ Gerard O'Daly Archived 2015-11-25 at the Wayback Machine.
  48. 1 2 "Belvedere mourns Garret FitzGerald - Jesuits Ireland". 24 May 2011.
  49. ↑ "Oct 3 - Bl Columba Marmion OSB (2) 1858-1923 - Catholicireland.net".
  50. ↑ "Ger Brennan says time for young people to learn more about faith".
  51. ↑ Duggan, Keith. "Short career long on impact". Irish Times.
  52. ↑ "BBC - WW2 People's War - Belvederians who died in The Second World War 1939-1945 (6)".
  53. 1 2 3 4 "Capital's famed rugby academy salutes 32 heroes from its illustrious history - Independent.ie".
  54. ↑ "Pic: Cian Healy and Cathal Pendred look a lot different now than when they won the Leinster Senior Cup in 2005 - JOE.ie".
  55. ↑ http://www.leinsterrugby.ie/news/10168.php#.V2umYo4cZ3k
  56. ↑ "Cathal Pendred UFC Profile".
  57. ↑ "Around the Province".
  58. ↑ "He reached for the sky - Independent.ie".
  59. ↑ "Refurbished Belvedere House to hold art exhibition - Jesuits Ireland". 28 January 2015.
  60. ↑ "Diabetes: Ian Dempsey on his life sentence - Independent.ie".
  61. ↑ http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/wogan-death-a-shock-and-a-shame-says-friend-henry-kelly-34411101.html%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
  62. ↑ "Meetings with a remarkable man... Thomas Pakenham - Independent.ie".
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