Castleknock College () is a voluntary Vincentian secondary school for boys, situated in the residential suburb of Castleknock, west of Dublin city centre, Ireland.
Founded in 1835 by Philip Dowley, it is one of the oldest boys schools in Ireland. Although priority is given to those of the main Catholic tradition, as a Christian school, it is attended by students of other denominations and faiths. The school's colours are navy and sky blue. The school crest is a book, symbolising education, a cross, symbolising Catholicism, the Irish shamrock, symbolising the success of the Vincentians in Ireland and the papal tiara, symbolising loyalty to the Holy See.
History
In 1830, a year after the passing of Catholic Emancipation, priests from the Vincentian Community (Congregation of the Mission; CM) in Maynooth College obtained permission to open a day school under the patronage of the Archbishop of Dublin. On 28 August 1833 a day school at 24 Usher's Quay, in central Dublin, was opened.
On 28 August 1835, St. Vincent's Ecclesiastical Seminary was opened in Castleknock, as a boarding school catering for just 47 boys. The first student to enrol in 1835 was John Lynch of Clones, County Monaghan. He would later enter the Vincentian order and eventually become Archbishop of Toronto. A contemporary of John Lynch was Patrick Moran, who would also be ordained as a Vincentian priest and become Bishop of Cape Town before being appointed as the first Catholic Bishop of Dunedin (New Zealand) in 1869.
Philip Dowley a former Dean of Maynooth and Provincial for the Vincentians, was the first president of the college.
The school site had previously been occupied by a Protestant school for boys run by William Gwynne. The school buildings together with 40 acres of land were sold to the Vincentian Fathers in 1835.
Queen Victoria and her royal party visited the school on 22 April 1900. The event is historic, as being the first occasion that an English sovereign visited an Irish Catholic college. The intended visit of the Queen to Castleknock was made known to the authorities of the school some days beforehand by the Rudolph Feilding, 9th Earl of Denbigh. This royal visit confirmed a place for the school at the summit of Irish education and Irish society.
Before the foundation of Clonliffe College in 1861, seminarians for the Dublin Archdiocese would study in Castleknock before completing their studies in Maynooth College.
Academic life
The school aims for a low teacher/pupil ratio, and has a range of computing and science laboratories. The school's Alton Library, a reference and lending facility, is the largest second-level school library in Ireland.
Sporting tradition
Sporting facilities at the school include nine rugby pitches, one soccer pitch, a cricket crease with pavilion, table tennis room, state of the art tennis courts, a fully equipped weights room and an athletics track.
Sport has been played at Castleknock since the foundation of the college. Throughout the mid-nineteenth century a game peculiar to Castleknock, known as stilts, was played by the entire student body on a gravel patch in grounds. Owing to the often over-zealous efforts of the participants this game was discouraged by the college fathers in favour of soccer, which was the game of choice among students of Castleknock until 1909 when it was replaced by rugby as the college's primary sport. In 1918 the college won the Leinster Colleges Senior hurling championship. Shortly afterwards the college concentrated more on rugby and the playing of Gaelic games became less prominent.
Rugby
Rugby posts were first erected in the college in November 1909. The school has won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup on eight occasions since first entering (and winning) the competition in 1913. Castleknock teams have been runners-up in the competition on fifteen occasions, contesting more finals than any other school apart from Belvedere College and Blackrock College. The Leinster Schools Junior Cup has also been won on eight occasions, the last time in 1966. Castleknock is considered to be one of the Major Leinster Rugby Schools, the others being Blackrock, Clongowes, Belvedere, Terenure, St Michael's and St Mary's. The college appointed Adrian Flavin, a former Ireland rugby player, as director of rugby in the year 2013.
26 past men have represented Ireland at full international level, the most recent being Leinster Rugby's Devin Toner (class of 2004) who has been capped on seventy occasions. Toner is one of two past men to have won the Heineken Cup (2009, 2011, 2012) with Denis Hurley of Munster Rugby lifting the trophy in 2008.