150 years of Dunedin Catholic education celebrated

The celebrations started on October 16 with a dinner, continued the next day with a debate between former and current students and was rounded off with a cake cutting, school tours, a showcase by current students, presentations and displays of old photos, and an afternoon tea.

The event schedule included a Mass celebrated by Dunedin Bishop Michael Dooley at St Patrick’s Basilica in South Dunedin on Sunday, October 18, followed by morning tea.

Cutting the celebration cake was Trinity Catholic College’s youngest pupil, Christina Jose, 11, alongside the event’s oldest former Catholic-educated student Bernice Armstrong, nee Sutherland, 87, who started attending St Philomena’s College in 1953. 

Trinity Catholic College principal Kate Nicholson said organising the event had not been easy with so many schools to factor into the celebration. Her school was probably one of New Zealand’s only secondary schools to have a full family tree, she said.

While there were many girls’ schools that were a bit older than 150 years, the weekend was chosen for celebrations as it marked the date when a boys’ school was officially opened, fully rounding out Catholic education for everyone.

The 150th anniversary weekend celebrated the oldest of the schools, as well as the newest. 

Dunedin’s first secondary Catholic schools were St Dominic’s College, opened by the Dominican Sisters in 1871, the Christian Brothers’ High School, opened in 1876, and St Philomena’s High School, opened by the Sisters of Mercy in 1897. 

In 1964, there were the first of many shake-ups to Catholic education when the Christian Brothers’ High School split into the Christian Brothers’ Junior School and St Paul’s High School. In 1976, St Dominic’s College and St Philomena’s High School combined to form Moreau College.

In 1989, Catholic secondary education in Dunedin as we know it today came about with the major amalgamation of St Paul’s High School and Moreau College. They merged to form Kavanagh College – now called Trinity Catholic College – a co-educational secondary school on the site of the former St Paul’s High School.

Former New Zealand Catholic Education Office chief executive Paul Ferris recounted a story of a building project on the site of the current Trinity Catholic College that was almost derailed when it was discovered that the Speight’s Brewery stream went under the school property.

This prompted a joke proposal to sell the runoff as “holy water”.

FULL STORY

Beer, bankruptcies and blessings: Dunedin’s Catholic schools celebrate 150 years (By Laine Priestley/Otago Daily Times – subscription required)

150th Anniversary (Trinity Catholic College)