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Mount St Joseph Abbey

Roscrea all-boys boarding school to close after 112 years

The school, which has seen a dramatic drop in enrolment in the past few years, will gradually close over the next few years.

AN ALL-BOYS BOARDING school has announced it’s to gradually close because of a significant drop in the number of enrolments.

In the past ten years, there has been a 45% decrease in student enrolments at Cistercian College “undoubtedly exacerbated” by the recession, according to a statement by the abbot of the college, Richard Purcell.

“The reality is that in the 20 years up to 2009, the college had an average enrolment of 300 boys. The current enrolment is 167. Indications were that enrolment for 2017/2018 would have been about 150.”

Purcell says that running the college on this number of enrolments is not possible.

What this means for students

From the beginning of the next academic year (in August/September of this year), there will be no classes for first, third and fourth/Transition Year students. These students will be transferred to other schools, according to Purcell.

Discussions will begin to ask second and fifth year students and their parents whether classes should continue until the end of the next academic year (June 2018).

The school assures that the announcement won’t affect this academic year.

Bishop Fintan Monahan of Killaloe said that the closure of Cistercian College “will be deeply felt in our diocese”.

For over a century, the contribution, and now the legacy, of the Cistercian College in the areas of Catholic education, in sport, in politics and public service, in business as well as in other key facets of Irish life, has been immense and is deeply appreciated throughout the Diocese of Killaloe and much further afield.

He offered his best wishes to staff, students and the school community as they began the “difficult process” of the gradual closure of the school.

Read: UCC student dies after contracting meningitis

Read: Theresa May didn’t look too impressed with a student’s Lego robot

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25 Comments
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    Mute James Beattie
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    Feb 4th 2022, 2:31 PM

    They have been self harming since 1690

    242
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    Mute Tom Molloy
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:53 PM

    @James Beattie: In fundamentalists groupings it becomes a competition to prove loyalty through out-extreme-ing competitors in the group. Sorry for inventing a word.

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    Mute Mjhint
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    Feb 4th 2022, 5:25 PM

    @Tom Molloy: this is also the essence of fascism.
    “Fascism has a built in self destruction philosophy”
    Christopher Hitchens

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    Mute James McErlain
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    Feb 4th 2022, 10:39 PM

    @James Beattie: Have you forgotten 1798? A revolution led by the modern day loyalists’ forefathers, who fought alongside their Catholic neighbours to get rid of the British. The Orange Order was created by the British to divide the Presbyterian & Catholic people of Ireland & prevent any future joint rebellions.

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    Mute James Beattie
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    Feb 4th 2022, 2:33 PM

    Take from a Twitter post. Sums it up

    “Poots has been ditched by the DUP. He then carried out the move which loyalist stakeholders had been demanding of the DUP. Then to save face, the DUP are trying to out-Poots Poots by bringing down stormont. Jeffery doesn’t want Poots to be the hero”

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    Mute Justin Gillespie
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:42 PM

    @James Beattie: Nail on the head. This is all internal DUP fighting.

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    Mute Angela McCarthy
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    Feb 4th 2022, 4:56 PM

    @James Beattie: Thats one assessment James and a fair one, but I would add like the above article suggests – the DUP is privately quaking at opinion polls north and south and if they cant unite unionism behind their party, they will be dreading the coming election. If and when they refuse to nominate a Deputy First Minister to pair up with Michelle O’Neill, they will finally be left as past emperors with no clothes and many ordinary unionists might well ask them why they contested the elections in the first place.

    All my attention now is on Doug Beatty and his next move. He has an open goal here to become the next leader of unionism, but will he take it and promise to get the executive up and running again and should publicly declare now that if SF captures the greater vote and the UUP comes in second place, that his party will nominate a Deputy First Minister.

    He desperately needs now to put a huge distance between his party and the DUP. Unfortunately, he seems to be caught off guard by the DUP stunts of the last two days and wasn’t prepared. He needs to pump up the volume now and become vocal with real steady leadership for ordinary unionists who can see the DUP have completely lost the plot.

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    Mute Justin Gillespie
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    Feb 4th 2022, 6:01 PM

    @Angela McCarthy: Beatrice can’t declare his willingness to work with SF or he will lose a large tranche of voters to either the DUP or TUV.
    The sad fact is that a significant number of unionist voters will not stomach a SF First Minister and no unionist party can risk alienating them.
    It’s a sobering judgment on the peace process that that is how things are but facts are facts.

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    Mute Justin Gillespie
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    Feb 4th 2022, 6:37 PM

    @Justin Gillespie: Beattie not Beatrice, bloody autocorrect…

    5
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    Mute James Gorman
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:08 PM

    DUP just being DUP
    Pulling wardrobe down on top of themselves

    88
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    Mute Patrick Egan
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:20 PM

    Hardly either the first or last time the DUP throw their dodo out of the pram.

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    Mute James Rowan
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:46 PM

    Delusional Unionst Party aka DUP

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    Mute Hugh McCann
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    Feb 4th 2022, 4:45 PM

    Dinosaurs Under Pressure

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    Mute Declan Moran
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    Feb 4th 2022, 5:30 PM

    @Hugh McCann: best description I’ve ever seen Hugh

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    Mute Eoin Roche
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:11 PM

    The most badly led and mostly politically inept political party, of consequence, in all of post-war Europe. You wouldn’t actually be this bad at politics and strategy if you were a blind old dog living on a remote farm.

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    Mute Bernhard Rohrer
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    Feb 4th 2022, 4:27 PM

    FFG in the Republic and Unionists in the North are deposing themselves by sheer inpetitude.

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    Mute Thomas Meaney
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:06 PM

    Where’s the logic in nailing your own coffin shut?

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    Mute Declan Moran
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    Feb 4th 2022, 4:42 PM

    Hopefully an act they won’t recover from. Sick of the serial say no to everything party

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    Mute Billy Davies
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    Feb 4th 2022, 4:24 PM

    Not the sharpest tools in the shed are they?

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    Mute pat seery
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    Feb 4th 2022, 3:59 PM

    Jeffrey will Fall on His Sword like Boris will do nex week

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    Mute camio55
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    Feb 4th 2022, 5:51 PM

    You really have to hope that both the DUP/SF fade away and more enlightened parties emerge to bridge the divide. . Both parties have in the past number of years brought down the NI Executive for their own partisan reasons. They have demonstrated that they are incapable of governing NI together. They live in the past where trimhant rhetoric/mantras are the norm.
    NI has the capacity to excel if it can take advantage of its unique position within the UK and its single market status within in the EU.

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    Mute Karl Phillips
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    Feb 4th 2022, 5:38 PM

    That mob don’t want to share, never watched to share, and now have taken the ball and gone home Delusional Unionist Party love it.

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    Mute Antaine O'Labhradha
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    Feb 4th 2022, 9:57 PM

    Unionism is in Canute mode. At partition, they were up to their knees in the waves. Now, the waves are up to their waists. And still, when the waves are up to their zygomatic arches, they’ll be telling them to begone. What they need now is a leader who will talk to carve out the position as part of Irish society that they want for themselves. They were a political minority when they gerrymandered partition. They’re doubly so now. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of Irish people, north and south, want reunification of our country and our people and not to be ruled by the British. As a minority, unionism does not have the right to force British identity or foreign rule on unconsenting Irish people. Certainly, we Irish can, should and will respect their identity. But the constitutional link with the UK has to go, as that option does not command majority support. After negotiations, Orange parades which respectfully celebrate Protestantism [without the usual vile anti-Catholicism and anti-Irishness and the up-to-their-necks-in-fenian-blood hatred for their neighbours] can be a means of carving out their niche in a united Ireland. Perhaps we could get to a stage where Catholics could actually watch these things with no sense of hatred emanating from the marchers and hangers-on. Perhaps Catholics and Protestants here might finally learn to live together in peace, equality and [when permitted by the capitalist economic cycle] prosperity, just like they have done in the rest of the world. There are myriad non-constitutional ways in which their affinity with House Windsor can be facilitated and Charlie can even have her pad in Hillsborough. Imagine how it will be when finally, a person’s religion is an incidental irrelevance and, over time, ceases to be a divisor. But they can no longer keep the blinkers on and think everything’s going their way. It isn’t and won’t be, because of demographic change and democracy. Even old Canute had the sense to get out of the waves before he drowned!

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    Mute Dan Duggan
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    Feb 4th 2022, 6:29 PM

    Thats was just a collection of statements.

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    Mute Raymond Dixon
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    Feb 4th 2022, 6:27 PM

    Well said. There are a pair of them in it.

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