Dear Members
We have organised a visit to Maynooth College on Wednesday 19th November, from 11 am until 3.30 pm.
Maynooth is easily accessible by public transport. There are regular trains from Connolly Station as well as buses.
The programme is as follows:
10.45: we will meet at the President’s Arch which is the front door of St Patrick’s Building (Pugin Hall) See map at https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/student-engagement/getting-know-maynooth
11 a.m. : Visit of Saint Patrick’s College Chapel, led by Rev. John-Paul Sheridan. The Chapel, to be built by public subscription, was initiated by Charles W. Russell, President from 1857 to 1880, a friend and confidant of John Henry Newman. The architect was J.J. McCarthy, Professor of Architecture at the Catholic University. The foundation stone was laid on 20 October 1875, and it was finally opened for worship on 24 June 1891. It is in French fourteenth-century Gothic, more ornate than Pugin’s buildings, but still restrained. The massive tower and spire were added a decade later.
The architect for the interior was William Hague but the guiding spirit was Robert Brown, President from 1885 to 1894. They were not free of the perennial problem, of having ‘to do much with little means’, but the outcome was an unqualified success. In a large complex of plain and generally utilitarian buildings, a visit to the College Chapel can hardly fail to be a genuinely religious experience.
12.45 to 2 pm.: Lunch in the Pugin Hall. Members will purchase their own lunch but there will be a reserved table for the group.
2 pm : Visit of Russell Library.
The Russell Library houses the historical collections of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth which was founded in 1795 as a seminary for the education of Irish priests. The reading room was designed by renowned British architect and designer Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) and completed in the year 1861. The Russell Library contains approximately 34,000 printed works dating from the 16th to the mid-19th century across a range of subjects including: theology, mathematics, science, geography and history. Other important collections include: medieval and Gaelic manuscripts, archival material and incunabula (pre-1501 printing).