From Moneygall to Maynooth: confessions of a former seminarian

It’s been 30 years since I first walked through the gates of Maynooth College with the clear intention of becoming a priest. At the time I was so convinced of my vocation that I didn’t bother filling out the CAO form before completing my Leaving Cert, just shy of 17. “What was the point?”, I concluded – just needless paperwork; an unnecessary distraction. I was sure of a lot of things then. I only realised later in life that certainty can be an awful burden to carry around.

Thirty-six of us entered Maynooth on September 6th, 1992, All Ireland Sunday. This came as something of a shock to the college administration as we were by far the smallest class in living memory; down from over 50 who had entered the year before.

I remember vividly attending Mass in my home village of Moneygall that morning, and hearing the words of the Gospel reading: “And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it?” For a moment, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

Our 36 were a motley crew, from all parts of the country, and a diversity of backgrounds. This was how things were back then; after all, there were some 240 clerical students at Maynooth, not counting those studying at other Irish seminaries such as Clonliffe, Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford and Thurles, all since closed. Variety was guaranteed.

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At that time, most students for the priesthood came directly from Leaving Cert, but not exclusively. Some of our crew had already tried out other university courses, and others had left their careers to join: one pre-med studies; another, nursing; a third, a career in accountancy. One was a qualified chef; another a DJ; another still a mechanic. There was no such thing as a “typical” seminarian.

We spent our first year lodged in a building called Long Corridor. Each of us had his own room, but this was only a very recent development, a happy consequence of falling numbers. The rooms were spartan, but adequate to our needs. Our only luxury was a tiny travel kettle which we would often have to boil at a plug point on the corridor because there wasn’t enough power in the rooms. Small cartons of milk were left on the windowsill outside, in the absence of a fridge.

Some of my classmates found the transition to the Maynooth regime restrictive. By contrast, as an only child from a small village, I found the stimulation of living on the same corridor with 35 classmates, with their kaleidoscope of life experiences and cacophony of new accents, exhilarating. Phrases such as “It’s wile cold, hai!”, from my Donegal classmates, became part of my rapidly expanding lexicon, while I also got to hear of hitherto unknown (but, to me, exotic) places such as Ballydehob and Nobber.

The variegated nature of my class was also reflected in their musical tastes. A simple stroll down Long Corridor of an afternoon routinely brought me in contact with everything from the entire back catalogue of Abba to Iron Maiden, and from Count John McCormack’s soaring tenor voice singing “I hear you calling me” to Christy Moore whipping up his audience with the words “Anyone for the last few choc-ices, now? …. Oh, Lisdoonvarna!”. And, given its recent release, there was also “My heart is low, my heart is so low, as only a woman’s heart can be”.

While most of our class were Irish, we did have two non-Irish classmates, one Mexican and another Slovak. One Saturday morning, just a few weeks after arriving, the Slovak student knocked on my door. “SalvAHdor”, he began, in heavily accented English, “could you tell me where I might find a hoor?”. Initially taken aback at the candid manner in which he posed the question, not least because he was just a few weeks into a long period of preparation for a life of celibacy, I blinked, and swallowed hard, my mind racing for the most appropriate way to respond. “A hoor”, he went on, “I need a hoor for my room”, and then quickly qualified his statement: “I need to hoor my room”. “Oh, a hooVER!!”, I clarified, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. Potential vocation crisis narrowly averted.

They say that Maynooth is a much more difficult place to leave than to enter. The camaraderie among classmates, and the firm friendships made, ensured that when the first of our number decided to leave seminary a few months later, it was a blow to the group as a whole. But we soon got used to the reality that the majority of our class would never reach ordination. And even of those who did, some would leave ministry within a short few years. After five years in training, it was my turn.

Thirty years on, priestly vocations have largely collapsed in Ireland. One would not need a full five fingers to count the number who have entered Maynooth to train for diocesan priesthood this year. And yet those who do choose this path inevitably come with similar hopes, dreams and ideals to those I once had. Maynooth was a hugely formative experience. It’s where I learned to question. It’s where I grew up. And it was mostly my classmates who helped me do it.

Salvador Ryan is professor of ecclesiastical history at St Patrick’s Pontifical University Maynooth. His latest book is Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany.