Search Results for 'McEvilly'

There is historical evidence to show that the Jesuits were already in the city in the early 1600s, combining the work of ministry and education. In 1645, the Order set up their first college in Galway on Lower Abbeygate Street, where Powell’s shop is today. They were forced to leave the city by the Cromwellians, but they came back. They were forced to leave the city by the Williamites, but they came back. They had to close their Galway residence in 1768 due to a lack of manpower but they were persistent and came back again, and in 1859 they took over a house on Prospect Hill and the following year, set up a college in Eyre Square.

The Patrician Brothers, at the invitation of the last Catholic Warden of Galway, arrived in Galway in 1826 and a month later they opened St Patrick’s Monastery and School on Market Street. They initially had 200 pupils but this figure rapidly grew so that during the Famine, there were more than 1,000 boys being educated, fed, and many of them clothed there every day. The school was a major success but there were no educational facilities for older boys in the ‘lower orders’ in Galway so Bishop McEvilly invited the Patrician Brothers to set up a secondary school.