Our Schools

Boarding Schools of Cork

First County Cork Boarding Schools

Middleton College was founded for the education of young men of the 'Established Church' through an endowment of Lady Elizabeth Villiers in 1696, opening as a day school, then later also offering Boarding School facilities. It was the first and only Boarding school in County Cork for young men. In time they also accepted Catholics.

The Ursuline Order with whom Nano Nagle had originally been associated, established the first Boarding School in Cork City for daughters of city merchants in January 1772. For more than 100 years theirs was the only boarding school for young catholic ladies in the county. This was confirmed, when, according to the Catholic Almanac of 1866, it was the only Boarding School in the entire County of Cork. There were no Boarding Schools for young men listed.

Carrigtwohill Boarding School for Young Ladies

Within a year of the ‘Poor Servants of the Mother of God’ arrival to Carrigtwohill they had established their Convent on Chapel Lane on land gifted them by Father Richard Seymour. Although, they were not a teaching Order, they took on the responsibility of the education of the young ladies of the village and county of Cork in a ‘Day School’ in their convent house, and very separate to the mixed Parochial National School established by Richard Seymour in 1856. English, French, and Music formed the chief subjects of education according to a Cork Examiner article of, 26^th July 1876.

By July 1879, as the Convent of St Aloysius, the Sisters began advertising as the ‘Middle Class School for Girls’, under the patronage of the Bishop of Cloyne, costing eighteen guineas per annum. Middle Class in this context has nothing to do with class structure, but the age group between Nursery and University education. Now, English, French and Drawing were taught as additional subjects. The following year it was being advertised as the ‘Middle Class Boarding School for Girls’.