Crescent College
Crescent College Comprehensive SJ is a secondary school located on a section of 40 acres (162,000 m²) of parkland at Dooradoyle, Limerick, Ireland. The college is one of a number of Jesuit schools in Ireland.Mission StatementCrescent College SJ is a Catholic school under the trusteeship of the Irish Jesuit Provincial. The college acknowledges that the family is the primary educator and, through its commitment to the values of the school, shares the responsibility for the student’s education. The school is grant aided by the Department of Education and Science.Crescent College Comprehensive S.J. has dedicated teachers who are committed to high academic standards. The college provides a rich and diverse curriculum catering for the needs of each individual student. It strives for excellence also in the areas of social concern and spiritual values, sport and culture, wherein students are encouraged and challenged to realise their full potential as human beings in the Ignatian tradition.The school’s management structure consists of the Board of Management whose policies are implemented by the headmaster of the day. The headmaster is assisted by a deputy head, assistant principals and staff, academic and non-academic.16th to 18th CenturiesThe first Jesuit School in Ireland was established at Limerick in 1565 by the Apostolic Visitor of the Holy See, David Wolfe SJ, sent to Ireland in 1563 by Pope Pius IV, with the permission of the third Jesuit General, Diego Laynez. Woulfe, a Limerick man, was possibly Knighted for services to the Crown some years before, but subsequently entered Holy Orders in Spain. He subsequently joined the Jesuits at Rome in 1550, where he formed an association with Ignatius Loyola, Francisco Borgia and the early Jesuits. Recongised by Loyola as an young Irish man of some promise, he was recommended to Pope Paul IV as Nuncio in the late 1550s, which was accepted. Pope Paul's Apostolic Mission charged the Visitor to 'to absolve all manner of lapses from the church, and chiefly heresies and schismatical faults' and to set up Grammar schools if possible and persuade parents to send their children to them. However it took Woulfe two years to establish his visitation, though he was confirmed as Apostolic Visitor by Pope Paul's successor, Pius IV.
