Williamstown Castle

Blackrock College (Vorlage:Lang-ga) is a Catholic voluntary secondary school for boys aged 13–18, located in Williamstown, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland. The College was founded by French missionaries in 1860, to act as a school and civil service training centre. Set in Vorlage:Convert of grounds, it has a sporting tradition. The College, Vorlage:Convert from Dublin city centre is just in from the sea, and is self-contained, with a large boarding school and teaching facilities. Now run by a lay foundation in trust, it maintains academic standards and requires all pupils to participate in non-academic activities. The missionary tradition continues with charity programmes, especially at Christmas. It accommodates approximately 1,100 day and boarding students.

History

Vorlage:Expand section The college was founded by the Congregation of the Holy Ghost in 1860, the first of the Order's five schools in Ireland. The founder is listed as Fr (Père) Jules Leman, a French missionary with the Holy Ghost Order. It was originally known as the French College. A successful civil service training and university department (where students were examined and had degrees conferred by the Royal University of Ireland) were run for over forty years, until University College Dublin grew, and the school focused more on the second level curriculum. Although never a seminary, some ordinations have taken place in Blackrock. The first ordination at Blackrock College was on 22 April 1900 when Mgr. Emile Allgeyer CSSp (a former student in Blackrock and first to be made a bishop), ordained Joseph Shanahan (who later became a bishop).

Heraldry

The proper crest of the College, being the third and last creation, dating back to 1936 and explained in the 1937 College Annual as being:

The Heraldic Crest Of The College. ARGENT: - On a Cross Azure, the Dove of the Holy Ghost, Proper, with seven Rays descendant, in the first quarter a Lion rampant of the second.

On 30 April 1926 Fr. Leen at a sports day speech encapsulated the words Fides Et Robur which hence forth became the Rock motto. In 1928 a new College Crest, bearing four emblems around a blue cross was hurriedly officiated, primarily to show off the Fides Et Robur motto over the College's especially built new front gates. Not everyone was happy with this design and possible variations of a new design may have been experimented with; evidence exists that both in crest and in uniform, by reason of fault or debate, and most likely between 1928–1936, a distinctive crest had been "with nine rays descendant, Or". In 1936 Dr. McQuaid instigated a new and distinctive crest that to this day is in continual use (unchecked variations and wayward deviations are contracted into stores by stationery and uniform suppliers). It was adapted on blazers that year and a heraldic description of the arms of the College was published (though not officially registered) in the 1937 Blackrock College Annual. It was commissioned into stained glass in 1938, presumably in its true and intended likeness and survives today at the end of one of the house corridors, though it's conformity to the true heraldic interpretations are not accurate; "a Lion Rampant of the second" would correctly reveal only a blue silhouette of a rampant lion, that is, minus any fine caricature details so apparent in the existing variations.

Blackrock College

Status and operation

Blackrock is now run by the Congregation of the Holy Ghost in close co-operation with a dedicated group of lay personnel. The annual fees for students in 2011 were € 6,300 for day boys, €17,250 for boarders and €18,250 for overseas borders.

The College and its sister schools in Ireland are today held in trust by the Des Places Educational Association, which, as the College's Patron, aims to maintain the Spiritan ethos in all five schools – Blackrock, Rockwell, St. Mary's, St. Michael's and Templeogue – conducted by the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in Ireland.

Curriculum

The curriculum offered is broad, covering all common subjects in the State Examinations including Latin, German, Art, Materials Technology, Chemistry and Economics. Leaving Cert scores tend to be high, with 20% of students scoring 500 points or more. Inspections by the Department of Education found exemplary standards of teaching and learning. The Irish Times placed the College in the "Top Ten" schools in the state, based on the proportion of students who accept a place in Higher or Further Education. There are dedicated facilities for Home Economics and Materials Technology.

College buildings

There are sporting and teaching facilities. The campus is Vorlage:Convert and contains nine rugby pitches, a cricket lawn, an athletics track, an indoor swimming pool, a gym and indoor halls. Apart from classrooms and study halls, there are nine science laboratories, a woodwork room, a multimedia LCVP room and a home economics kitchen. The college also contains a refectory, chapel, lecture halls and stage which hosts student-run dramatic productions. The college is undergoing an extensive modernisation programme.

Boarding School

Blackrock College is one the few schools in Ireland that still has a boarding school. The boarding school is housed in Williamstown Castle (known as "The Castle"). Mr. Alan Rogan is the Director of Boarding in the college. The Boarding School contains around 100 students. Boarding is available from first year up to sixth year. Some day boys join the boarding school in 6th year in preparation for their leaving cert. Boarders are allowed leave the castle with permission.

Extra Curricular Activities

Field Sports

Sport is viewed as an integral part of a boy's education and each pupil is expected to participate in some activity. The principal sport in the college is rugby, with Blackrock having held the Leinster Schools Senior Cup 66 times. It has also won the Leinster Schools Junior Cup 46 times. Blackrock won the inaugural Cup competition held in 1887 and have been consistently the most successful team, winning the Cup at least 3 times in every decade since.

Former Rock rugby players include, Fergus Slattery, Shane Byrne and Victor Costello. Current professional players include former British and Irish Lions and Leinster & Ireland's Grand Slam winning captain, Brian O'Driscoll. Others include Leinster and Ireland's Luke FitzGerald, Leinster's Heineken Cup winning captain Leo Cullen, Vaseily Artemiev Northampton and Russia, David Boland and London Irish captain Bob Casey.

Datei:Rockleinster.jpg

Blackrock v St Michael's 2006 Leinster Schools Senior Cup final at Lansdowne Road

Gaelic Football is played in 4th year in the college. Past pupils Mark Vaughan and Niall Corkery are forwards on the Dublin Gaelic football team while David Boland retired from Gaelic in 2008 to focus on rugby. The school also has a hurling team for 2nd and 3rd years. 5 members of the All Ireland Club Championship winning Kilmacud Crokes team of 2008-09 were past pupils of Blackrock College. The college has a soccer team for its senior pupils in 4th, 5th and 6th year. The soccer teams greatest success came in 2003 when, captained by Steve "ste's up" Dillon and managed by David Boland they won the Leinster and All-Ireland U-17's schools cup.

Squash

The college's most successful - in terms of silverware - sport is squash, which has won the college more trophies than any other activity in the College's history, including rugby. In recent years the number of squash players have dwindled in the college but David Boland has assumed the role of Squash coach to reawaken the college's team.

Swimming

The college has a strong swimming team, which combines 1st to 6th year. Currently the team has 6 training sessions per week. The college competes in Leinster Senior Schools having won the senior relay cup multiple times, most recently in 2008, and the Irish senior schools, regularly making finals. The college has a strong record of inter-schools gala’s also. The schools has two 25 metre swimming pools on the grounds. The junior school Willow Park also has a successful swimming team. The college also has teams in other watersports such as water polo and 4th years also participate in rowing.

Other games

Table tennis is another one of the colleges sports with many of its students participating in it. Many players come from 2nd year with older years fielding less numbers. 2010 saw the Blackrock Senior A team retain the Leinster Schools Senior Cup, won for the first time in 2009, while the Seniors also won the Leinster Senior League for the first time since 1968, as well as reaching the final of the Senior All Irelands for the first time. 2010 saw the Junior team reach the Junior Cup final for the 3rd year in a row, however in 2008 & 2009 the Blackrock Junior A team completed the Leinster double, with victories in both Junior Cup and Junior League, and also reached the final of the Junior All Irelands in both seasons. In 2010 the Senior A team competed in the World Schools Championships for the first time.

The college has its own basketball team run by English teacher Claire Campion. It has small numbers and is successful. The basketball programme produced Irish and inter provincial school boy representatives in the 70's such as John and Noel Williams. The college has 3 outdoor basketball courts and 2 indoor basketball courts on the grounds. One indoor basketball court is in Willow Park gym and the other is Jubilee Hall. The outdoor basketball courts are currently under construction and are due to be finished by September 2010.

The school has a tennis team divided between minors, juniors and seniors. They practice and play their home matches on the colleges four tennis courts. 1st years in Willow Park also play on the colleges tennis teams. The college also has teams in other sports such as cricket, golf, rowing and Judo. Cricket has been played since the foundation of the school in 1860 and still produces teams today.

Cycling

Blackrock College and Willow Park share a cycling club called the Willow Wheelers, run by Mr. Christy McDaid. The club has an annual trip to France each Easter, recently in Cap D'Agde. It also has hostel trips to Clare and Donegal at the end of the school year. The club has an annual Vorlage:Convert cycle for charity which has raised around 150,000 euro in the past few years.

Athletics

The college has a very successful athletics team. It participates regularly in the East Leinster, Leinster and Ireland Athletic championships at under 14s to under 18s annually. It has won all these competitions on many occasions.

Culture

Each year an opera production is staged in conjunction with Mount Anville (Senior Musical) and Loreto College, Foxrock (2nd and 4th Year Musical), nearby girls' schools.

Debating is an old tradition in Blackrock College dating back to the school's founding in the 1860s. There are separate clubs for junior and senior pupils. One of the college Alumni, Shane Murphy (now a Senior Counsel), won the 1985 World University Debating Championship at McGill University, representing the Honourable Society of the King's Inns. The college's debaters participate in many competitions including the L&H debates in UCD.

The college has two main choirs: the Leman and the Liebermann choirs. The Leman choir has members from 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th year and the best of the senior members of the Leman choir are accepted into the Liebermann choir. The College has a choir for boarders and another for parents. The College has a successful orchestra. Each year, all the choirs and the orchestra host the annual Leman Concert in the National Concert Hall.

Blackrock College Radio

A transition year program to set up and maintain a radio station, broadcasting to the surrounding south Dublin area, is undertaken annually. All of the administrative work, promotion and content-creation is the labour of transition year students. The station also allows programming submissions from other schools to be broadcast. It's the only second level radio project that broadcasts 12 hours a day (8am to 5pm), five days a week. The station has a collective mix of programmes from its current affairs programming to its guest programming. Blackrock College Radio has featured many famous and influential guests including Neil Flynn, Ryan Tubridy, Eamon Gilmore, Leo Cullen, Mary Hannifin, Micheál Martin, Ruairi Quinn, Brent Pope, David Norris, The Heathers, Bobby Kerr, Denis O'Brien and many more.

Seachtain na Gaeilge

Each year a Seachtain na Gaeilge (literally, "Week of Irish") is organised to promote the Irish language in the school. This co-curricular activity was particularly commended in a Department of Education inspection, which also recommended its further development.

Social work

The spiritual and missionary aspect of the school has been maintained, despite the worldwide decline of new clerics in the Catholic Church. Many charitable causes are supported by the students; most notably the Transition year organises the annual St. Patrick's Day Badge appeal which raises large sums of money throughout Ireland for the Irish charities GOAL and Aidlink. The St. Patrick's Day project is estimated to have raised over € 5,000,000 for charity, raising over € 220,000 in 2005 alone.

The school also has a long-standing relationship with The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, contributing large sums of money raised through various projects. For example, the proceeds of the annual sale of Christmas Trees in the college are donated. In 2007, the Christmas Tree project raised € 93,000 and the total amount raised for the Society in that year is estimated to be in excess of € 150,000.

The College supports humanitarian projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly through the college's cycling club, the Willow Wheelers. In 2006, their annual sponsored Vorlage:Convert cycle raised in excess of € 60,000. The club also annually sends a group of self-funded volunteers to help with humanitarian projects in Africa, most commonly: establishing clean water supplies for villages and constructing schoolhouses/infirmaries or similar institutions.

Bob Geldof, initiator of the Band Aid and Live Aid movements for famine relief in the 1980s, was a student at the college (however, he was bitterly critical of it and in fact left without any qualifications). Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary, the Catholic lay movement, is also a past pupil. In his memoirs, Straight Left: A Journey in Politics Ruairi Quinn cites the ethos and "sense of solidarity" with the Third World that was imparted to students, including Bob Geldof, as a formative force. The Holy Ghost Fathers were (and remain) an active missionary order in Africa. He wrote:

The poverty of distant Africa was brought into our classrooms by our returned missionary teachers.

—Ruairi Quinn, Straight Left, pg. 36

Associated primary schools

Willow Park School, a private primary school that acts as the College's principal feeder, is also run by the Order and is situated on the same campus. Until the early 1970s, St. Michael's College in Ballsbridge was also a feeder school for Blackrock College, but St Michael's now has classes up to the Leaving Certificate.

Alumni

The Blackrock College Union represents former students of the college, organises many charitable events throughout the year, assists the school, e.g. mentoring, management assistance, advice etc. and organises social events for members. There are branches in Ireland and across the world.

Blackrock's large enrolment and high standards have produced many distinguished alumni through its long history. Early Free State ministers such as Art O'Connor (Secretary for Agriculture 1921-1922), and Éamon de Valera, six times Taoiseach and the 3rd President of Ireland, studied and later taught in Blackrock. Modern politicians include Barry Andrews T.D., a junior Minister.

Flann O'Brien, the eminent writer (real name: Brian O'Nolan) and Tim Pat Coogan, the journalist and scholar, were students of the school. Alumni in the fine arts include designer Paul Costelloe, composer Michael McGlynn and visual artist Robert Ballagh. The Holy Ghost Order has a long tradition of missionaries. Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary, is perhaps the best-known. Singer, songwriter, author, political activist and KBE Bob Geldof was also a student at the College. Eminent handbag designer Pauric Sweeney also calls Blackrock his alma mater.

The college places a heavy emphasis on sport, particularly rugby. The current Ireland international team includes Brian O'Driscoll and the captain Luke Fitzgerald, who both first chased the oval ball in Williamstown. In living memory are Victor Costello, a 20 year Leinster, Ireland and Blackrock R.F.C. veteran, who also put the shot for Ireland at the Olympics, Leo Cullen, currently captain of the Leinster team and Shane Byrne, Leinster and Ireland professional rugby player.

In other games, Michael Cusack, founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association taught at the school, and played early forms of hurling with the pupils.

External links

• Blackrock College - official website
• Willow Park School - official website
• Deptartment of Education, Subject Inspection of Science
• Department of Education, Subject Inspection of Gaeilge
• Past Pupil's Union
• GOAL-Aidlink Badge Project