Cross and Passion in 1940

Did you know that Cross and Passion College was once a completely Irish-speaking school? writes Brian Byrne. Or that it was described as 'an outstanding Gaelic oasis' in the 'fight against the Gaelicisation of our schools' in 1940? For that information, the Diary is indebted to friend and correspondent Joe Murray, who sent this clipping from the Catholic Standard of July 12th 1940. It seems that the Standard was doing a series on Famous Irish Schools, and this was the issue featuring Kilcullen College, today's Cross and Passion College. We feel it is worth publishing here in full, not only to experience the hyperbolic style of the un-named writer, but also as an interesting description of the era and the contemporary status within it of a very important part of Kilcullen's heritage.

FAMOUS IRISH SCHOOLS

KILCULLEN COLLEGE

Where the Sisters of the Cross and Passion are doing so much for the rebuilding of Gaelic Ireland.

At old Kilcullen Bridge, in glorious, tragic '98 the English military experts received a rude shock when the cavalry of Dundas broke on the points of the pikemen of Kildare. Was it more than a strange coincidence that in recent years, when the fight against the Gaelicising of the schools and the nation waxed hot and furious, the forces of the enemy received no less a shock to hear over that same bridge, the voices of the college girls ringing out in their own soft Gaelic language?

When the annals of Irish Ireland for the present century are being written, Kilcullen convent school should fill an honoured place there.

Few educational institutions in Ireland have been more helpful in the gaelicisation of our youth than Kilcullen—that outstanding Gaelic oasis situated in lovely surroundings in the historic plain of Kildare. In this age of muddled criticism of educational reform it is pleasant to point to Kilcullen which offers courses of cultural training with a definite practical bias; courses which will equip our young Irish girls for the life that lies ahead of them in a regenerated Ireland. The very atmosphere for Kilcullen will imbue them with vision and ambition for their own spirit and for the welfare of this ancient Catholic nation.

FOUNDATION

Founded in 1850 in England by Father Gaudentius Rossi C.P., assisted by a zealous convert, Miss Elizabeth Prout, afterwards its first Superior, the congregation of the Holy Cross and Passion was soon called upon to prove itself worthy of its name. Though under the tutelage of Dr. Turner, first Bishop of Salford, its trials were heavy until Papal approbation was secured in 1876. The congregation has today houses in Ireland, England, Scotland and the Americas—north and south—with noviciates at Kilcullen in Ireland, Bolton in Lancashire, and in North and South America.

The Irish Foundation at Kilcullen came in 1878. The little house down the street which first sheltered the Sisters was soon found quite inadequate, and the present site was acquired and built upon. Within the last twelve years the building has been more than doubled in size, and a spacious concert hall has been added. Since their advent to Kilcullen the Sisters of the Cross and Passion have won the highest encomiums from all quarters as a teaching body. Their influence locally through their many activities is being manifested daily, while from all parts of Ireland pupils throng to their class-rooms.

SCHEME OF EDUCATION

Previous to the setting up of the native Government here, the religious teaching staff prepared their pupils for the examinations held by the Oxford University, these being the recognised public examinations of the school. With the change of Government came the necessary change of examination system. Years of arduous training and experience have resulted in providing a highly qualified and efficient staff for the teaching of all subjects of the Secondary programme as prescribed by the Department of Education. Irish is the language in daily use in the school, both inside and outside the class-rooms. The results of the teaching show that the Gaelic speaker has not lost the art of imparting knowledge with supreme success. Surely Brigid of Kildare must listen with pride and pleasure to the sounds of her own sweet Gaelic within Kilcullen's walls. And surely, also, the lines of grim-eyed pikemen that haunt the Bridge from which they tossed aside the thundering wave of English cavalry, will recognise their own martial spirit (born of Ireland's Cross and Passion) in the brave work done by Sisters and by pupils. But the success for which the Sisters labour above all else, is that their Irish Catholic girls should be ready and proud to face the cross that they must carry for Ireland, if the old traditions of the Irish Gael are not to die out in a welter of foreign materialism. These traditions we feel are safe in the keeping of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion.

THE SCHOOL BUILDING

The school at Kilcullen is a triumph of the zeal of the Sisters for the Faith and Fatherland. Dormitories with separate pitch-pine cubicles, each fitted with hot and cold water; class-rooms, science laboratory, concert hall, all have the best modern equipment. Electric lighting, central heating, "Vita" violet rays and all the rest, including a domestic science kitchen for housecraft studies. The concert hall is elaborately fitted with cyclorama, floodlights, etc. Kilcullen has all this and it and it sounds very modern and efficient. But it does not in the least interfere with the old, kindly, Gaelic Catholic atmosphere of the Kildare of Brigid's days.

"DOMINE NOVERDI TE"

"Lord that I may know Thee" is the motto of Kilcullen College. The spirit of "Christ and Him crucified" is that which the Sisters strive to acquire, and from the lessons learned in their hidden life they try to impart of their pupils an intense devotion to the Passion of Jesus and to the sorrows of Mary, His Immaculate Mother. It is from their close study of the Lord in His greatest act of Love—His Passion and His Cross—that Sisters and pupils acquire the spirit of deep happiness and real charity that reigns in the school, and the brave and hopeful views of life held and taught there.

[The page article is accompanied by a large advertisement for the college, highlighting the Irish-speaking ethos, the Commercial Section which prepares pupils for careers 'as Government Typists or Commercial or Secretarial posts', and the Domestic Science programme for girls who wish to take the Entrance Examination for the Domestic Science Training College. The advertisement also notes that 'Each member of the school staff has specialities, either at the University or other Training College, in the subject under her care'. ] 

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