page_title: St Patrick's College, Maynooth
section_title: Reopening
hierarchical_section_title: St Patrick's College, Maynooth / History / Reopening
caption_attribution_description: English: Ireland's oldest native tree, the Silken Thomas Yew, is 700-800 years old.The tree was described by the Irish Times in October 2011 in an article entitled, Trees of life and lineage – Ireland's champion trees: "According to Aubrey Fennell, the man with the responsibility for measuring and recording every one of Ireland’s heritage trees for the Tree Council of Ireland, Ireland’s oldest native tree is the Silken Thomas Yew tree (Taxus baccata) growing in the grounds of St Patrick’s College in Maynooth. When last measured, it had a girth (the tree version of a waist measurement) of 14 metres and is estimated to be in the region of 700-800 years old. As for Ireland’s tallest native tree, the record is held by a 40-metres high ash tree ( Fraxinus excelsior ) growing in the grounds of Marlfield House, Clonmel, Co Tipperary."
context_page_description: St Patrick's College, Maynooth, is the "National Seminary for Ireland", and a Pontifical University, located in the town of Maynooth, 24 km from Dublin, Ireland.
  The college and seminary are often referred to as Maynooth College. The college was officially established as the Royal College of St Patrick by Maynooth College Act 1795. Thomas Pelham, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, introduced a Bill for the foundation of a Catholic college, and this was enacted by Parliament. It was opened to train 500 Catholic priests every year, and was once the largest seminary in the world.
  In the final decades of the 20th century, and early 21st century, the seminary intake has been decreasing in line with the wider fall in vocations across the Western developed world, with a record low in 2017 of six first year seminarians. This fall was due, in part, to the decision of the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to transfer Dublin seminarians to the Irish College in Rome.
  Degrees are awarded by the Pontifical University at Maynooth, which was established by a pontifical charter of 1896. The Pontifical charter entitles the university to grant degrees in canon law, philosophy and theology.
context_section_description: The present college was created in the 1790s against the background of the upheaval during the French Revolution and the gradual removal of the penal laws. The college was particularly intended to provide for the education of Catholic priests in Ireland, who until this Act had to go to continental Europe for their formation and theological education. Many were educated in France, and the church and government were concerned at the Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution, and at the same time at the risk of revolutionary thinking arising from training in revolutionary France (with whom Britain was at war). Also relevant was the enactment of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 in Ireland in 1793.
  The college was legally established on 5 June 1795 (35 Geo III, cap. 21) as The Royal College of St Patrick, by act of the Parliament of Ireland, to provide "for the better education of persons professing the popish or Roman Catholic religion". The college was originally established to provide a university education for Catholic lay and ecclesiastical students, the lay college was based in Riverstown House on the south campus from 1802. With the opening of Clongowes Wood in 1814, the lay college (which had lay trustees) was closed and the college functioned solely as a Catholic seminary for almost 150 years.
  In 1800, John Butler, 12th Baron Dunboyne, died and left a substantial fortune to the college. Butler had been a Roman Catholic, and Bishop of Cork, who had embraced Protestantism in order to marry and guarantee the succession to his hereditary title. However, there were no children to his marriage and it was alleged that he had been reconciled to the Catholic Church at his death. Were this the case, a Penal Law demanded that the will was invalid and his wealth would pass to his family. Much litigation followed before a negotiated settlement in 1808 that led to the establishment of a Dunboyne scholarship fund.
  The land was donated by William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, who had argued in favour of Catholic Emancipation in the Irish House of Lords. He lived nearby at Carton and also at Leinster House. The building work was paid for by the British Government; parliament continued to give it an annual grant until the Irish Church Act 1869. When this law was passed the college received a capital sum of £369,000. The trustees invested 75% of this in mortgages to Irish landowners at a yield of 4.25% or 4.75% per annum. This would have been considered a secure investment at that time but agitation for land reform and the depression of the 1870s eroded this security. The largest single mortgage was granted to the Earl of Granard. Accumulated losses on these transactions reached £35,000 by 1906.
  The first building to go up on this site was designed by, and named after, John Stoyte; Stoyte House, which can still be seen from the entrance to the old campus, is a well-known building to Maynooth students and stands very close to the very historic Maynooth Castle. Over the next 15 years, the site at Maynooth underwent rapid construction so as to cater for the influx of new students, and the buildings which now border St Joseph's Square (to the rear of Stoyte House) were completed by 1824.
  The Rev. Laurence F. Renehan (1797–1857), a noted antiquarian, church historian, and cleric, served as president of St Patrick's from 1845 until 1857. Under Renehan, many of the college's most important buildings were constructed by Augustus Pugin.
caption: Ireland's oldest tree, the Silken Thomas Yew, is 700–800 years old.
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