Parents and past pupils bid to keep Glenstal Abbey School open
Glenstal Abbey School was set up in 1927 by the Benedictine order at Glenstal Castle in Murroe, Co Limerick. File picture: Valerie O'Sullivan
After being in operation for almost 100 years, Glenstal Abbey School, one of Ireland’s most popular private boarding schools, is set to close its doors in 2028.
In recent days, the village of Murroe in Co Limerick was rocked by the news of the school’s closure.
Now former students and parents have rallied to make sure “alternative” options are explored to save the establishment.
While the trustees of the Benedictine school said the environment in which boarding education operates has changed and is “not sustainable into the future”, some are of the opinion it can still be salvaged.
The news came as a shock for current students and their parents.
Now, two groups have urged the Abbot of Glenstal, Columba McCann, to consider other options.
As of now, concerned parents have one priority — make sure there is a “viable way to keep Glenstal open for all current pupils to complete their education”.
If students are allowed to pursue their education at Glenstal, it would have to stay open up until 2032.
Another group, the Glenstal Old Boys Society, have also contacted Mr McCann to halt the closure.
Sources told the the group was to have a meeting last Saturday to discuss solutions to Glenstal Abbey’s finances.
A number of notable personalities are among the school’s alumni, including business magnate John Magnier, and Paddy Cosgrave, who founded the Web Summit. Former Munster rugby players Duncan Casey and Ben Healy both graduated from the school.
Healy, the former Munster outhalf who hails from Tipperary, spent six years at Glenstal Abbey.
“A lot of people will have a lot of very happy memories there. My family and I have had a very close connection to the school and the people there,” he told the .
“Some of the happiest memories from playing and training are from the pitches at Glenstal. I wouldn’t be where I am today without that place,” he said.
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From 2018 to 2024, Limerick man Harry Gleeson studied at Glenstal Abbey.
“The things to say about it, it’s kind of hard to put into words. But I think one of the best things about Glenstal was the brotherhood that came from it,” Mr Gleeson told the .
“The year before I went into school, rugby was a big part of my life, they had won the Senior Cup, which was a big Limerick competition, the year beforehand. For us younger lads, going in in first year was great. It made the rugby look cool, and that kind of forced you to play rugby. Rugby was a big thing that brought everyone together.”
Three days a week, he attended rugby practice where he would train and meet his friends before studying. Their time together led to a cherished sense of “brotherhood”.
“When you leave, you get given a book that has the contact numbers and names of everyone who went to Glenstal. If you’re ever in need of someone in a certain profession, you can go back through that book and call someone or even your friends.”
To this day, Mr Gleeson said they still organise Christmas dinner with their classes, and meet at events in the likes of Lahinch, Cork, or Dublin.
“We still see posts now going into the WhatsApp groups of lads who were in there in the 1990s, who still meet up to this day all wearing their old boy school ties and stuff.”
Echoing the response to the planned closure of Cistercian College in Roscrea in 2017, two groups are now working to ensure Glenstal Abbey School remains open.
“There were arguments going through the group chat that people didn’t want the school to just come back for the sake of having the school. I think other boarding schools brought in boys and girls, whereas I think ‘Glenstal was better as just a boys school’ is what some people were saying,” Mr Gleeson said.
“I’m not too sure if they want to bring it back as just an ordinary school. I think they’re trying to aim to keep Glenstal the way it was, which sounds difficult to do,” he added.
While not everyone agrees with the prospect of the school potentially being co-ed, Thailand-born film producer Tom Waller would welcome the news.
Mr Waller enrolled his two sons, Alex and William, in Glenstal Abbey, and they both graduated from the school. They now study in UCD.
“They left the school only with positive thoughts about the place,” he said.
“My two boys definitely have benefited from fantastic education there, so I was slightly shocked to hear that the school is closing.”
As his family have roots in Co Tipperary, the idea of his boys studying in Limerick, only a 45-minute drive away, was appealing.
Plus, Mr Waller had himself experienced a similar type of school in England.
“I’d met a lot of old boys of Glenstal Abbey School, and they impressed me very much and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to send my two boys, if I could to a school like that?”
“And we were in a position to do so, it was a fantastic solution for us.”
According to him, it would be a fantastic opportunity for girls, if the school was to go co-ed.
“I have two young daughters myself, we now have to look at the schools for secondary and absolutely if Glenstal was co-ed, I’d definitely consider sending my daughters there, for sure.
“I think it would be fantastic if they could think of a way to keep the school open and, certainly, I would support them by considering sending my girls there.” Mr Waller said.
In the village of Murroe, people remain proud of the “high regard” that the Benedictine school holds nationally.
That’s according to Fianna Fáil senator Dee Ryan, who said the community has been saddened by the school’s closure.
“There was talk at one point of potentially the school going co-ed and having girls also admitted, so there might have been an awareness that the school needs to change along with the times, but there wasn’t an expectation that the school would be announcing the eventual closure of the boarding school and so it was quite shock in the village when the news broke,” Ms Ryan said.
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