Page 32 - Gonzaga at 60
P. 32
32
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
A ‘pioneering educaional experiment’? The fulilment of John Charles
McQuaid’s intenion to nurture a (presumably tradiional) Catholicism
amongst the professional middle classes of South Dublin? A model of
Jesuit educaion? Or simply a rather successful secondary school that
corresponds to all the caricatures implied in the journalists’ reducionist
term ‘feepaying’?
The early history of Gonzaga, the names and the reputaions of
the founding Community and early staf, has already been fairly well
documented in Fr Lee’s two-part account published in the Gonzaga Records of 1985 and 1986;
1962: Fr Joe Kavanagh in Christoper Finlay’s A Short History of Gonzaga College 1950-2000, published in 2000 for the
and Fr Bill Lee
Jubilee Year; and in the numerous recollecions of the Past writen for the Gonzaga Record. Fr
Noel Barber’s aricle has outlined the stages of development and indeed the profound soul-
searching about the very validity of the school’s existence, the invesigaion of alternaive models.
There will of course be many references to the more distant past throughout this volume.
The aim of this aricle, however, is to chart some of the developments, and perhaps
changes of emphasis, of the forty years since 1970; to capture the essence, the atmosphere of
the school and its aciviies. It is also ime to ill a considerable gap in the accounts of Gonzaga
already writen, and relect the work of the many people whose dedicaion has contributed to
the development of the school since 1970, and to the shaping of its character and essence.
PHYSICAL CHANGES
First to the physical change, the greater part of which post-dates 1970. A visiing past-
pupil encounters an enormous increase in the area of school building, and faciliies one would
expect of a modern school (many less privileged areas of the educaion sector had such before
Gonzaga): properly-lit art-rooms; a well equipped gymnasium and sports hall; changing-room
faciliies adjacent to the pitches and showers with a reliable low of hot water; well stocked
laboratories (though much of the basic equipment has been here since Fr Bill Lee went out and
got it – beakers and pipetes tend to remain the same); banks of computers in a designated
computer room – many will remember Fr John Dunne’s pioneering enthusiasm for his 386’s and
Fr John A Dunne SJ
486’s; a beauifully appointed library constructed in the spaces once taken up by the original hall
and stage; and a very ine ‘lecture theatre’, as it was described on the architects’ plans unil they
were told that we wanted something rather more than that.
All of this is proof of the conidence of the Jesuit Province that something of the original
vision remains, and proof of the belief of the many parents who have contributed to the cost
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
A ‘pioneering educaional experiment’? The fulilment of John Charles
McQuaid’s intenion to nurture a (presumably tradiional) Catholicism
amongst the professional middle classes of South Dublin? A model of
Jesuit educaion? Or simply a rather successful secondary school that
corresponds to all the caricatures implied in the journalists’ reducionist
term ‘feepaying’?
The early history of Gonzaga, the names and the reputaions of
the founding Community and early staf, has already been fairly well
documented in Fr Lee’s two-part account published in the Gonzaga Records of 1985 and 1986;
1962: Fr Joe Kavanagh in Christoper Finlay’s A Short History of Gonzaga College 1950-2000, published in 2000 for the
and Fr Bill Lee
Jubilee Year; and in the numerous recollecions of the Past writen for the Gonzaga Record. Fr
Noel Barber’s aricle has outlined the stages of development and indeed the profound soul-
searching about the very validity of the school’s existence, the invesigaion of alternaive models.
There will of course be many references to the more distant past throughout this volume.
The aim of this aricle, however, is to chart some of the developments, and perhaps
changes of emphasis, of the forty years since 1970; to capture the essence, the atmosphere of
the school and its aciviies. It is also ime to ill a considerable gap in the accounts of Gonzaga
already writen, and relect the work of the many people whose dedicaion has contributed to
the development of the school since 1970, and to the shaping of its character and essence.
PHYSICAL CHANGES
First to the physical change, the greater part of which post-dates 1970. A visiing past-
pupil encounters an enormous increase in the area of school building, and faciliies one would
expect of a modern school (many less privileged areas of the educaion sector had such before
Gonzaga): properly-lit art-rooms; a well equipped gymnasium and sports hall; changing-room
faciliies adjacent to the pitches and showers with a reliable low of hot water; well stocked
laboratories (though much of the basic equipment has been here since Fr Bill Lee went out and
got it – beakers and pipetes tend to remain the same); banks of computers in a designated
computer room – many will remember Fr John Dunne’s pioneering enthusiasm for his 386’s and
Fr John A Dunne SJ
486’s; a beauifully appointed library constructed in the spaces once taken up by the original hall
and stage; and a very ine ‘lecture theatre’, as it was described on the architects’ plans unil they
were told that we wanted something rather more than that.
All of this is proof of the conidence of the Jesuit Province that something of the original
vision remains, and proof of the belief of the many parents who have contributed to the cost
