This collection of essays, thoughtfully curated by Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan, offers a unique insight into the cultural and intellectual life of a long-lived and important centre of Irish intellectual and ecclesiastical life, Maynooth College. The volume's most important contribution seems to be one for the future: its reminiscences and memoirs of the college – such as Martin Pulbrook's memories of the accelerated growth of both the college and the Classics Department during the 1970s – present interesting insights into the culture of the college during a time when both society and Catholicism sought to find new ways of understanding and being in modernity. In the essays focused on the twentieth century, We remember Maynooth offers future Irish ecclesiastical and intellectual historians the oft-sought and little-found memories of what happened in academic and social circles in Maynooth off the page and out of the classroom, contributing greatly to the bigger picture of an intellectual life of its students and faculty. Thomas J. Norris's reflections on his own education at Maynooth, for example, along with other chapters on the educators at Maynooth and the broader intellectual culture fostered by the academics, such as in Michael Conway's chapter ‘Father Peter Connolly: from dreaming spires to stern reality’, fill out the picture of not just what was taught at the seminary and college, but what it was like to learn there and from whom. For those scholars seeking to understand Maynooth before the twentieth century, the book might be a bit disappointing in its scope as the bulk of its essays are focused primarily on the 1900s. However, college life within its broader social and intellectual currents at Maynooth intersect in this volume with some reflection on the general and international trends and changes in theology, society and politics during the twentieth century to make for an interesting and often personal read across its wide range of essays.
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