St Patrick's College, Maynooth

The largest Catholic seminary in Ireland, founded by an act of the Irish parliament in 1795. Its foundation was a Protestant effort to win Catholic support in a time of increasing political and economic unrest in the country. It was also a response to the closure of many European Irish Colleges due to the French Revolution. It had a lay college until 1817, its theological schools were recognized as a pontifical university in 1896, and its arts and science schools constituted a recognized college of the National University of Ireland from 1908. In 1997 these latter schools were established as a separate civil institution, and St Patrick's continued as a seminary and pontifical university.

The college was established on the site of an earlier college which had been founded by the Earl of Kildare in the 16th century but closed about 20 years later by Henry VIII. The earliest part of the college is Stoyte House, which was extended from 1796. The library contains some rare manuscripts and books and the museum has a fine collection of antiquities.

Through the priests it educated, St Patrick's exercised a formative influence on the political, social, and religious life of Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries and through its missionary activities it was influential all over the English-speaking world, especially in the USA. In recent years it has undergone a modernization process, part of the Catholic Church's effort to redefine its role in contemporary Ireland.