St. Nessan's Community College

St. Nessan’s Community College is a non-denominational, co-educational school, which was established in 1978. It is comprehensive in its intake and its curricular provision.

St. Nessan’s Community College is committed to maintaining an educational environment where the growth, learning and development (Fás, Foghlaim, Forbairt – school motto) of our students can flourish.

To further the aims of St. Nessan’s Community College as expressed in the Mission Statement

The pursuit of high standards in all endeavours will be expected and every effort will be directed towards the attainment of such standards.
The school will do its utmost within its resources to provide appropriate opportunities, so that every individual has the opportunity to gain maximum benefit from their experience in St. Nessan’s Community College.
The rights, responsibilities and dignity of all individuals within the school community will be respected. However, the Common Good takes precedence where there is a conflict between individuals.

St. Nessan lived in the 6th century. His feast day is kept on the 25th of July, the anniversary of his death in 551 A.D. He had a great reputation for learning and founded the famous monastery at Mungret circa. 527 A.D. It is reported that up to 1500 monks lived there at one time.

St. Nessan is the secondary patron of the Diocese of Limerick, along with St. Ita and St. Lelia.

The motto FÁS, FOGHLAIM, FORBAIRT is represented in the motif. It represents what education is about: physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and social development. While any one of the three words in the motto could represent those aims, the triadic form of triple alliterative enumeration from the literary tradition of Sean Ghaeilge is most appropriate and certainly more memorable. Furthermore the triplication has a very strong Christian significance.

The motif features, promotes and reinforces this theme of education. In the centre is the symbol of the person. The triangle is the symbol of the school. The circle represents the world outside. The position of the symbols as well as the triadic shape and the perfect shape of the circle have may other educational connotations.

The first formal demand for a new post-primary school in the Northside of Limerick City was made by Caherdavin Residents Association in 1974 and conveyed to the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Mr. Tom O’Donnell, to cater for the burgeoning population of students for second level education in the area.

Co-incidentally that same year there was a competition for a design for a secondary school sponsored by the Department of Education – the conceptual structure being to create easily identifiable Base Units related to age groups and at the same time provide fluent connections between these Base Units or specialist sections. (This was the original school building)

St. Nessan’s Community Moylish Park, Limerick, was set up under the trusteeship of City of Limerick V.E.C. as a co-educational school – comprehensive in intake; i.e. having full range of abilities and comprehensive in educational philosophy; i.e. providing academic and technical subjects with a wide range of extra-curricular activities.

In September 1978 St. Nessan’s Community College opened its doors for students with a first year intake and a limited number of second year students totalling just over 100 students and 8 teaching staff.

The College grew to almost 950 students and 61 teaching staff in the mid-nineties. Currently we have an enrolment of 360 students, 3 special needs assistants and a teaching allocation of 38.00 teacher equivalents including resource teachers and learning support teachers.

While the College was unique in design and structure, its life span, because of the materials used, was 20 years maximum and St. Nessan’s moved into a new, state-of-the-art building in March 2007 at the rear of the existing structure.

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