The North Monastery
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On November 9th, 1811, Brother Jerome O’Connor and Brother John Baptist Leonard opened the doors of a small school in Chapel Lane to just 17 students. News of this small beginning quickly spread and soon the school was far too small. In 1814 a site at Ard Mhuire, Our Lady’s Mount was purchased, cleared and construction of a new school and Monastery began. An outbreak of typhus fever saw the school being used as a temporary hospital before it officially opened to students in 1817. The celebrated poet and novelist Brother Gerard Griffin joined the Christian Brothers in 1839 and his remains are interred in the North Monastery Cemetery. In 1877 the technical genius Brother James Dominic Burke thrilled the people of Cork when to celebrate the jubilee of Pope Pius DC, he flashed beams of electric light into the sky from the grounds of the Mon, a full 2 years before Thomas Edison’s patented the light bulb. Around the same time Brother John P Holland began model tests of his new design, the submarine, in the North Mon’s Ornamental Pond. Many items connected to the above and to Tomás Mac Curtain, Terence McSwiney and Jack Lynch are on display in the Gaelcholáiste. Shane Ryan will give a talk on ‘Famous Faces of the Mon’. No booking required. An Mhainistir Thuaidh Our Lady’s Mount, Ard Mhuire, Monastery Road Gaelcholáiste Mhuire AG Talk at 11am. Full wheelchair access
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