Watch this page for news and updates as we get our 25th Hopkins Festival in shape. This is going to be a unique celebration of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and his interest in all the Arts.
Fieldtrip : James Joyce's Clongowes Wood College, Maynooth University and Festival Banquet
A field trip during the Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival emphasises links between Jesuit college Clongowes Wood in Kildare and James Joyce and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Field Trips form an integral part of the Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival each year. We like our visitors to visit and relax in places associated with the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins and with the Jesuits such as Clongowes Wood College (where James Joyce recieved some of his education; Emo Court, novitiate for the Jesuits for many years; Glasnevin Cemetary where Hopkins is buried and other such places.
Departure, by bus, to Clongowes Wood College at 13.45 hours and arriving in Maynooth in time for Sherry Reception and the Hopkins Society Banquet. The Clongowes Wood Tour will be guided by former Clongowes boy, Brian Arkins. We are hopking the sun will shine so that we can really enjoy this beautiful setting. At 4.15, we leave by bus for Maynooth.
4.45 at Maynooth Univesity, Penelope Woods will introduce visitors to the unique Russell Library. Penny always has a wonderful display specially prepared for our visitors. Vist the magnificent Gunne Chapel, relax in the Millennium Gardens and generally, enjoy this beautiful historic old campus.
5.30 Enjoy Sherry Reception with President of NUI Maynooth in the Gilmartin Hall (beside Pugin Hall) with a few poems and music to help you get in mood for the Banquet.
6.00 Hopkins Festival Banquet with distinguished guests and patrons of the Hopkins Festival. You will enjoy the Masked Mystery.
9 pm Bus leaves for Newbridge and you arrive back in time for a night cap in Johnson's Pub.
If you are not registered for the Festival, tickets for the Fieldtrip, including bus and banquet costs €90. Or, you might like to join us for the Maynooth Module and Banquet. Tickets: €30
Gerard Manley Hopkins visited Clongowes Wood College when he was in Ireland.The young James Joyce also started school in Clongowes Wood College when he was only six and a half years old, 'half-past six'
Hopkins in Clongowes Wood College
Gerard Manley Hopkins visited his Jesuit confreres in Clongowes Wood College when he was in Ireland.The young James Joyce also started school in Clongowes Wood College when he was only six and a half years old, 'half-past six' as he said himself. Richard Ellman describes the young, bespeckled Joyce as 'already a well-behaved, slim little boy in adult company, with a pale face and eyes of the palest blue to lend, when not laughing, an impenetrable coolness, an odd self-sufficiency, to otherwise regular and predictable features. Clongowes Wood College, a boys' school housed in a 15th-century castle and famous that "low dark narrow corridor" with grim looking past pupils (mostly serious judges) frowning down where the young Stephen Daedelous in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man made his weary way to see the Rector. Clongowes Wood College is now a private secondary boarding school for boys in County Kildare, Ireland run by the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits) since 1814, making it one of Ireland's oldest Catholic schools. Clongowes is still one of the foremost schools in Ireland and is set in an amazingly lush, tree-lined park in County Kildare. Well worth a visit! The chapel has several works by modern Irish artists: The Stations of the Cross are by Sean Keating and the stained glass windows by Evie Hone and Michael Healy. The college museum contains interesting antiquities. The Jesuit, Father Conmee was Rector of Clongowes Wood when Joyce started his life as a boarder in the isolated school.. Joyce remembered him later as 'a bland and courtly humanist.'Stephan Deadalus remembers how 'You told the Clongowes gentry you had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army.' ; and how ' You were awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose . . . . We hope you have a wonderful day at Clongowes Wood!
