The uncertain future of Catholic Ireland

The uncertain future of Catholic Ireland 

America

James T. Keane February 23, 2018

The College Chapel at St. Patrick’s College of Maynooth has 454 carved oak stalls for seminarians and priests. They run in serried ranks down the length of its nave, making it the largest choir chapel in the world. The church itself is a masterpiece of Gothic Revival, and the ceiling of the church offers a kind of visual catechism, taking worshippers through salvation history by means of painted images.

Since St. Patrick’s College’s founding in 1795 in County Kildare as the national seminary for the Catholic Church in Ireland, it has trained over 11,000 priests—not just for Ireland, but for the global church. The seminary also inspired two major missionary societies, the first directed to China and the latter to Africa. Many American Catholics may also remember that the parish priest of their childhood was from Ireland; that man was likely trained in Maynooth.

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