Milltown- Education at the heart of Community
Fleadh Cheoil Chiarrai welcomes all lovers of traditional music and culture to share and showcase their developing talents, and to compete against the best to hone these skills and push themselves to achieve their full potential. These values reflect the educational traditions of Milltown.
These competitions take place in the Presentation Secondary School and the Nagle Rice Community Centre, two world-class facilities in our community. These owe their origins to the commitment and vision of the people who introduced formal education and have been at the heart of Milltown’s evolution- the Presentation Sisters and the Presentation Brothers.
On April 24th, 1838, Mother Teresa Kelly and five sisters from Presentation Convent, Killarney, at the invitation of the bishop, arrived in Milltown to commence their work in education and that is still going on today.
On the 2nd of July, 1828, the school opened for children. A remarkable three hundred children were present that day and by the end of the month seven hundred children were enrolled, clearly showing the need for the Sisters’ help in the area. Rev. Batt O’Connor, P.P., opened schools in Faha and Callinafercy thus reducing the sisters’ workload. In 1874 there were thirteen sisters in the community and four hundred and thirty children in schools. In 1844, Mother Teresa’s term of office had ended and on the 4th of May 1844 she founded the Presentation sisters in Listowel.
The Presentation Brothers came to Milltown from Killarney in 1843. Shortly after arrival, they obtained a plot of land, on a long lease, from Sir William Godfrey (1797-1873) on which to build a monastery and school. It will be recalled that the Godfrey estate, amounting to about 7,000 acres, was originally allocated to Major John Godfrey during the Cromwellian Settlement as part payment of salary. Incidentally, the latter’s descendant, Sir William, remained a stalwart supporter of the Presentation Brothers all through his life.
Though Brother Paul Townsend, leader of the Brothers’ community in Miltown, managed to build a solid house and school on the new property, with the advance of the Great Famine of 1846-48, the Brothers had perforce to withdraw from Miltown to Killarney. It was not until 1863 that the Brothers were able to return to Milltown and take over management of their own school. Meantime, the school had been used as a hospital during the Great Famine and Rev Edward Fitzgerald had lived in the Brothers’ house for some years.
On their return to Miltown, with the help of Sir William Godfrey, the Brothers managed to get the school re-affiliated to the Board of National Education in 1863. The Milltown school was particularly successful during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, especially following the appointment of two very successful teachers there. The two were, Brother Alphonsus O’Connell, who was popularly known as ‘The Master’ and Brother Malachy McSwiney, who was popularly known as ‘Mr Mac’. The two began to give additional tuition to boys who wished to do examinations for entry to the Civil Service. Gradually their tally of successful students built up to the extent that the Milltown School was locally known as ‘The Little Academy’. The school also entered students for the Mathematics and Science examinations of the Royal College of Science in London.
In September 1958, the Presentation Brothers opened a Secondary School in Milltown under the name, Mean Scoil Muire na Toirbhirte. In 1968, the boys’ and girls’ secondary schools affiliated and, in 1974, they amalgamated to form a new co-educational secondary school, Presentation Secondary School, Milltown, the Brothers in collaboration with the Presentation Sisters. In 1981, the school moved into a new building on a new site, but, this building, in turn, proved inadequate to meet the school’s growing needs. In 2013, plans were approved for a new secondary school building and this completed and occupied in 2015. With the continued success of the school, however, the enrolment kept increasing and, at the retirement of Sr Canisius Collins as Principal in 2005, it had surpassed 500.
The Presentation Brothers had been involved in Primary and Secondary education in Milltown, Co. Kerry, for over one hundred and fifty years. The two orders thus have a long tradition of responding to the needs of the community. Close cooperation with community development has always been a central focus of both orders, as evidenced by the fact that Brother John Guinane was a long serving secretary of the G.A.A. club.
This year, 2018, the Sisters celebrate 180 years in Milltown with two ultra-modern schools and a state of the art community hall.
The venues at the heart of Fleadh Cheoil Chiarrai 2018 show that the orders will continue to ensure their vision looks after the people of Milltown and Kerry long into the future.
We thanks Br John and Sr Canisius for contributing to this article.
Br John Guinane
