Search Results for 'Johnny Grant'

Two hundred years ago, in October 1826, the Warden of Galway wrote to the Superior of the Patrician Brothers asking him to send at least one Brother to Galway to take over a school which had been moved from near the Shambles Barracks to a disused barrack in Lombard Street. Brother Paul O’Connor and Brother Dawson were sent to Galway. Cash in hand was one shilling. Social conditions were very bad, but the Brothers went ahead and established the Monastery School, known as The Mon. Before the school had been a year in operation, the improvement in the youth of the city was so evident that a public meeting was held in the school to vote thanks to the teachers, “whose zeal, attention and excellent arrangements had produced such happy results”.

On January 15, 1827 two Patrician Brothers, Paul O’Connor and James Walsh, took up residence in Lombard Street and set up the Monastery School. The attendance on that first day was 300 boys, many of whom had little interest in learning because they were poor and hungry. So the Brothers set up The Poor Boy’s Breakfast Institute in May 1830. It continued seven days a week, 365 days a year for many years after the founders' time. The breakfast consisted of porridge with molasses or treacle, and during the Famine, they fed 1,000 boys every day. The ‘Old Mon’ became a vital cog in education in Galway.