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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
weight-thrower at school, became a Jewish rabbi. 1
The Gonzaga of my day had a strong sense of being a special school. There may have
been some element of social eliism in this. But the principal eliism was intellectual. There
was a sense of pioneering a higher standard of school educaion in Ireland. This was reinforced
in the following years by the academic successes of the Gonzaga Past. Certainly, there were
elements in the educaion that were superior. The classes were smaller and there were some
excepional teachers. But, looking back, I am scepical whether the special course of studies and
the post matriculaion year made all that much diference. When we
let, we certainly had not reached the standard of the boys from English
schools to whom I gave irst-year tutorials in Cambridge some years later.
The absence of science, which was paraded as a virtue, was a serious
shortcoming. The arrangements for teaching modern languages were
poor. Apart from the Irish course in Connemara, no language holidays or
exchanges were arranged. The teaching of mathemaics I encountered
was unremarkable. Much of the academic excellence of the school was
due to the high quality of the intake and this, in turn, was a funcion of
the intellectual homes from which most of the boys came. I wonder if
this bred complacency and took the edge of the original aim of ataining
higher standards than were available in other Catholic schools. I also formed the impression that
there were some in the Order who resented what they saw as the pretensions of Gonzaga and Fr Jack Hutchinson with a
wished to cut the place down to size. group of students of Irish in
Looking back on my years in Gonzaga, what I value most is not so much the standard of Connemara in 1958
educaion as the personal example of the Jesuits who taught us. Some years ater I let, I saw a
member of the community batling homewards on his bicycle through the rain on a dirty winter’s
evening. I thought of the hardship of his life compared to those he had taught and what drove
men like him to turn their backs on what most of us covet and strive to atain. I recalled Fr
O’Conor’s last talk to us at the school about the importance of service, giving and not couning
the cost save knowing that one was doing God’s holy Will. I don’t later myself that I have
managed that. But the example of those masters who did during my schooldays has remained
with me as an example and some ideal to set against the crude materialism and selishness I see
in so much modern life as I struggle on trying to ind my way forward in this Valley of Darkness
Charles Lysaght
Class of 1958
1.: Several more vocations can be added to this list: John Macken SJ(1965, now deceased); Charlie Davy SJ
(1967); Gerry Whelan SJ (1978); and Gerard Clarke SJ (1980). Two more – Ciaran Forbes O.S.B (1960) and John
McCann O.S.B (1979) became members of the Benedictine community at Glenstal. Ciaran O’Carroll (1978) has
illed a variety of rolls as a Dublin diocesan priest, and is currently the administrator of Newman’s University
Church. Conor Donnelly’s (1971) priestly life took him, among other places, to the Philippines as Director of
Dissemination of Social Justice Information.
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
weight-thrower at school, became a Jewish rabbi. 1
The Gonzaga of my day had a strong sense of being a special school. There may have
been some element of social eliism in this. But the principal eliism was intellectual. There
was a sense of pioneering a higher standard of school educaion in Ireland. This was reinforced
in the following years by the academic successes of the Gonzaga Past. Certainly, there were
elements in the educaion that were superior. The classes were smaller and there were some
excepional teachers. But, looking back, I am scepical whether the special course of studies and
the post matriculaion year made all that much diference. When we
let, we certainly had not reached the standard of the boys from English
schools to whom I gave irst-year tutorials in Cambridge some years later.
The absence of science, which was paraded as a virtue, was a serious
shortcoming. The arrangements for teaching modern languages were
poor. Apart from the Irish course in Connemara, no language holidays or
exchanges were arranged. The teaching of mathemaics I encountered
was unremarkable. Much of the academic excellence of the school was
due to the high quality of the intake and this, in turn, was a funcion of
the intellectual homes from which most of the boys came. I wonder if
this bred complacency and took the edge of the original aim of ataining
higher standards than were available in other Catholic schools. I also formed the impression that
there were some in the Order who resented what they saw as the pretensions of Gonzaga and Fr Jack Hutchinson with a
wished to cut the place down to size. group of students of Irish in
Looking back on my years in Gonzaga, what I value most is not so much the standard of Connemara in 1958
educaion as the personal example of the Jesuits who taught us. Some years ater I let, I saw a
member of the community batling homewards on his bicycle through the rain on a dirty winter’s
evening. I thought of the hardship of his life compared to those he had taught and what drove
men like him to turn their backs on what most of us covet and strive to atain. I recalled Fr
O’Conor’s last talk to us at the school about the importance of service, giving and not couning
the cost save knowing that one was doing God’s holy Will. I don’t later myself that I have
managed that. But the example of those masters who did during my schooldays has remained
with me as an example and some ideal to set against the crude materialism and selishness I see
in so much modern life as I struggle on trying to ind my way forward in this Valley of Darkness
Charles Lysaght
Class of 1958
1.: Several more vocations can be added to this list: John Macken SJ(1965, now deceased); Charlie Davy SJ
(1967); Gerry Whelan SJ (1978); and Gerard Clarke SJ (1980). Two more – Ciaran Forbes O.S.B (1960) and John
McCann O.S.B (1979) became members of the Benedictine community at Glenstal. Ciaran O’Carroll (1978) has
illed a variety of rolls as a Dublin diocesan priest, and is currently the administrator of Newman’s University
Church. Conor Donnelly’s (1971) priestly life took him, among other places, to the Philippines as Director of
Dissemination of Social Justice Information.
