IRISH SOCIAL HISTORY lives on in the buildings of Ireland’s country towns, particularly the schools. President Mary McAleese is due to travel to Navan, Co Meath today to dedicate a library in one of these schools, St Joseph’s Mercy Convent, to the memory of Sr Mary Berchmans Lawlor, one of the legion of unsung heroes of Irish education. Sr Berchmans believed in the power of reading and encouraged girls to experience the ultimate adventure, literature.
She sourced books on all subjects for the school. It is a welcoming, living library and remains open throughout the school day.
Before the President arrives in the library for the dedication, she is due to have already celebrated the centenary of St Joseph’s Primary School with the younger students. These boys and girls have compiled a book, edited by a former principal, Sr Marie Louise, which will be presented to Mrs McAleese. Among the many articles and photographs charting the story of the school, particularly its mission work in Zambia and the increasingly international dimension represented by pupils from Eastern Europe and Africa, is a copy of the school register from June 1910.
Mrs Nell Jones has contributed her own story which begins with the words “My memories of starting school in St Joseph’s in 1928 when I was four years old are vague”, yet she recalls her maths teacher Sr Malachy. “We learnt our tables until we could recite them in our sleep.” St Joseph’s Mercy Convent was founded on December 3rd, 1853 by Sr Mary Catherine Atkinson and Sr Mary Joseph Morgan in an attempt to improve the literacy levels in the town which was becoming very labour concentrated with a predominately working-class population. The much needed school had been the dream of Fr Eugene O’Reilly, the then parish priest of Navan. His memory is honoured by a bust of him in the local Catholic church, St Mary’s, near the market square. He died before the sisters arrived from their convent in Kells to begin work. But he provided them with a good start; and their first base, a small house in Academy Street, a good omen for a school.
Mid 19th century Navan was a typical provincial Irish small town of harsh contrasts. The children of the wealthy were privately taught, but for the ordinary people there was little hope of even learning to read.
The first St Joseph’s was established just across the road from the present-day school, in Bakery Lane, off Trimgate Street. The building was funded by the Duke of Bedford. Nowadays the school has impressive computer and graphic design facilities, as well as three science labs, but for 19th-century working-class Irish girls the emphasis was on practical skills such as cookery and the immensely marketable needlework, a trade for girls who were expected to help support their siblings.
Reading, writing and arithmetic were quickly added to the curriculum.
Within four years of opening her school, Sr, by then Mother, Mary Atkinson, had secured possession of Leighsbrook House, a gentleman’s residence, previously owned by James Lee, whose family would emigrate to America. The original house became a convent and was extended to include a church. This building is now a health centre, the nuns having closed the church and moved in 1994 to a smaller building on the same site. The present-day secondary school is adjacent to it.
By the late 19th century, St Joseph’s had acquired a strong reputation for music. French and elocution were also being taught, and the beginnings of its present day academic tradition were being established. From the 1880s until 1955 an orphanage operated at the school. There could be between 25 or 30 children resident and they attended class with the day students. At the same time boarding facilities were introduced. In 1910 the original primary school and the building which now houses the library with its high arched window, flanked by side panels, were built by the Delaney Brothers who are pictured in the book, dressed in their smart Edwardian suits.
A short distance from the primary school is the secondary school. The former dormitory building has seen many changes over the years; the window which was repaired in situ last year, dominates the gable end. The library, in which today’s ceremony takes place, once contained 65 beds. It is a wonderful, atmospheric space with exposed roof beams and a wooden floor. After the boarding school closed in 1981, the room was left vacant for a while before being used as a games room.
The present principal, Vincent Donovan, recalls the first time he saw the old dorm. “It was housing three table-tennis tables and I thought it was a shame and could be used for so much more. It has a wonderful history.” He he points to a fascinating photograph dating from another time in which rows of beds are positioned neatly along the walls.
The same room is now filled with computers, graphic design screens and book cases. Sr Mary Berchmans Lawlor, to whom the library is being dedicated, was a local woman who had attended St Joseph’s as a student.
She was born into a farming family near Navan in 1920 and entered the convent on completing her Leaving Cert. She took the name Berchmans in honour of Saint John Berchmans (1599-1621), the Belgian seminarian who is the patron saint of altar servers. Sr Berchmans was academic by nature and took a degree in English and Latin at the then National University, in Earlsfort Terrace. While completing her higher diploma in education she did her teaching hours in St Joseph’s and commuted to Dublin for lectures. She was to spend her entire teaching career at her old school. In 1959 she was appointed principal. After retiring from that post in 1973, she devoted herself to the library.
Both schools were modernised in 1966; Sr Berchmans worked closely with the architects and spent hours examining the plans. She lived for the project. Always frail, she become terminally ill and died at the age of 61 in 1981, leaving a legacy that has not been forgotten. There are still people who refer to her as if she had only just left the room.
Mrs McAleese will also be presented with a dramatic ceramic piece glazed in pewter and antique bronze by a Junior Cert year art student and worked on the theme of mechanical parts. She has been invited to visit the school oratory, in which the wooden altar she donated to St Joseph’s now stands.
The wooden altar previously served at Áras an Uachtaráin. Many presidents, including Éamon de Valera and Mrs McAleese have prayed before it. Some of the exam students regard it as lucky.