24.04.2009
Archbishop Slams Unbelievable Lack of Understanding By Department of Education
Speaking at the launch of a history of Kilkenny College (entitled "Where Swift and Berkeley Learnt" by Lesley Whiteside with Andrew Whiteside) the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr John Neill sharply criticised "the very discriminatory nature of the cuts in last year's educational budget" and their effect on Protestant Schools.
He continued, "In spite of every effort made by schools, by management bodies and by bishops, there is an unbelievable lack of understanding in the Department of Education and Science of the fact that previous governments have recognised the specific needs of providing education within their own ethos for a vibrant but scattered Protestant population. As Lesley Whiteside rightly reminds us that across the middle years of the last century, the Church of Ireland community regained a great sense of confidence in a Republic which was becoming more truly inclusive, and this same community has increased significantly in numbers and self assurance of recent years. It is very sad that at this same time, there should be a blindness to the needs of Protestant schools, a need which was fully recognised by all previous administrations."
Lesley Whiteside with Andrew Whiteside
It gives me great pleasure to be with you all in Kilkenny to launch this magnificent book, telling the story of a great institution, or indeed three great institutions – Kilkenny College, Celbridge Collegiate School and the Pococke School. Personally I am delighted to launch a book under the authorship of Lesley Whiteside and Andrew her son. Not only have Lesley and her late husband Robert, himself both priest and headmaster, made a profound contribution to education across the span of a working life, but Lesley has herself opened up so much of the story of how we got to where we are today in education. My wife and I have known Lesley for about forty five years, so today are delighted to share in this launch. I am also delighted to be able to launch the book as one who served as chaplain to the College in the early nineteen seventies and where I attempted with great trepidation to teach each week, during the reign of Gilbert Colton. I also had the privilege of serving as Chairman of the Board for five years across the turn of millennium during the reign of Jack Black – and this link goes on as one of our daughters-in-law teaches here and we hope that this is where three grandchildren will be educated!
It is also good to be able to launch yet another book of that most prolific of publishers, Sean Boyle and Columba Press.
The venue today is special – because as you read the book, which is in fact very readable, accessible and fascinating, you will be reminded that it was Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond, who first founded a grammar school here in Kilkenny in 1538 – near on five hundred years ago. Though it failed to flourish in the long run – it was again an Ormond, James Butler, Duke of Ormond who was behind the founding of Kilkenny College in 1667 – nearly three hundred and fifty years ago.
As the title of this book Where Swift and Berkeley Learnt reminds us – in those first years it had some very famous pupils, and indeed catered to the upper echelons of a society that thought then in such terms! The late 17th Century was not an easy time for a school to flourish, but a pattern was to be established, that Kilkenny College was going to survive, however beaten down it might become. As we read the book, we discover an easier start to the 18th century but things were to go down again.
The authors comment on the paucity of documentation, but we are saved huge gaps in the story for the expertise with which the story is cast within the history of the country, within the lives of some significant individuals of whom much is known, and perhaps more significantly within the story of Irish education, a story to which this work makes an invaluable contribution.
The eighteen hundreds, the 19th century, were also chequered days – at the start of the century, the College had one hundred pupils, but that was to descend to a mere twelve at one point, though it seems to have averaged out at around forty pupils – though ending the century with a mere sixteen pupils. But once again, we are reminded by Lesley of the pupils – for example, Wellesley Bailey whose name is synonymous with the Leprosy Mission, which he founded and still does such significant work today. Another pupil of this period was William Magee who later was to be Archbishop of York and Primate of England, and who was himself the grandson of another William Magee, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland.
The book changes slightly as it moves into the twentieth century as we are getting nearer the period in which there are living memories or those at no more than second-hand. The century opened with the amalgamation of Kilkenny College with the Pococke School. The story of this school is told separately in Part 2 of the book. This was significant as it brought together two small institutions that needed each other. The legacy of the Pococke School with its emphasis on practical subjects was to be seen again in the direction in which Jack Black was to lead the College at the beginning of a new millennium. The amalgamation also brought the Incorporated Society into the picture, which gave to the College a strength beyond the merely local, though this had its complications as well as was to be discovered for a time in the early nineteen seventies!
The story of Shankey’s period as headmaster is recounted in some detail and it was a time of real development. But significantly, Lesley Whiteside, brings in a theme into her story, a theme which I think future historians will underline, and which I was privileged to see at first hand – the turning point in the story of Kilkenny College from being a small struggling school into what it is today did not happen overnight, and there are many people to whom credit is due, but the real heroes of the day for the present College are Gilbert Colton as headmaster, Henry McAdoo as Chairman and Bishop, and Freda Yates, still with us today. By the early seventies, the Incorporated Society was determined to close Kilkenny College and Celbridge Collegiate School with which the College was closely linked through the patronage of the same families – boys going to one, girls to the other. Kilkenny College and Celbridge, each with fewer than one hundred pupils were no longer viable by themselves. Through the determination of the Bishop and the Headmaster, it was resolved that the College would not close but would amalgamate with Celbridge.
There is one tale that Lesley Whiteside may not know of, from this period, and it was told to me by Archbishop McAdoo in his retirement. When all seemed very bleak, he made the journey to London to meet with the then Marquis of Ormond to enlist his support, be that political, or financial, or moral, to keep the College for future generations. I mention too Freda Yates, because her courage in leading a school into a new setting, giving up here own independent Principalship, and committing herself in every possible way to the new venture allowed this new step to be the saving of the College.
It was so opportune that Colton was to be succeeded by Sam McClure, a man of vision, and a man used to working in Co-Education, and it was he who truly reaped what had been sown. Between him and Bishop Noel Willoughby they began a building programme which seems to have gone on ever since. A school with seventy or eighty pupils in the seventies found itself doubled in the amalgamation but increased ten fold within a generation. These two men worked to establish Kilkenny College as the Diocesan School. It was this vision that was handed to Jack Black when he became headmaster in the closing days of the last century. He came as one of the most experienced headmasters at the time of his appointment, and as a priest and headmaster further cemented and gave visibility to the Diocesan ownership of the College. It was Jack Black who identified the need to offer practical subjects, in an age when the College was in direct competition with local Community Schools. Jack Black was succeeded by Philip Grey under whom the College has thrived, and it is with great sincerity that we pray that Philip will be fully recovered following his accident last year. Our prayers are very much for him, his wife and family.
The story of Celbridge Collegiate School is told fully in this book as well, and I am certain that it is one that pupils, teachers and past pupils of both Kilkenny and Celbridge will truly enjoy and value.
One last word, the College is now the biggest boarding school on the island of any denomination or tradition, and yet it is vulnerable. Like all schools in the Protestant Block Grant system, it is severely hit by the very discriminatory nature of the cuts in last year’s educational budget. In spite of every effort made by schools, by management bodies and by bishops, there is an unbelievable lack of understanding in the Department of Education and Science of the fact that previous governments have recognised the specific needs of providing education within their own ethos for a vibrant but scattered Protestant population. As Lesley Whiteside rightly reminds us that across the middle years of the last century, the Church of Ireland community regained a great sense of confidence in a Republic which was becoming more truly inclusive, and this same community has increased significantly in numbers and self assurance of recent years. It is very sad that at this same time, there should be a blindness to the needs of Protestant schools, a need which was fully recognised by all previous administrations.
I commend to you the story of one of our greatest schools – and I launch this book with great pride in the story that it tells and the way in which it tells it.