Crescent College Comprehensive in Dooradoyle, Limerick incorporates the characteristics of Jesuit Education. It seeks to develop fully each students’ religious, moral, social, intellectual, physical and cultural sensibilities.
As an important means of doing this the school strives to create a strong sense of community between parents, students and teachers.
The history of the school begins in 1859, when Jesuits agreed to manage a school on behalf of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick. This school was initially a Diocescan College and operated from premises in Hartstone St. Later it moved to Crescent House and was renamed Sacred Heart College in 1873. Popularly, however, it was known as Crescent College. The modern school crest reads “Crescentes in Illo Per Omina”. Literally this means ‘growing in Him through all things’, and is based on St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians 1:10.
Sacred Heart College ceased to be a fee paying school in 1971 and became a Comprehensive school. It now operates under the trusteeship of the Society of Jesus and the Minister for Education. The name Sacred Heart College is now defunct. Instead its official name is Crescent College Comprehensive SJ. In 1973 Crescent House had outgrown demand, and the Comprehensive moved to a modern greenfield site at Dooradoyle. Later it became a co-educational school, with a ratio of 3 boys to 1 girl. The Crescent Preparatory School was closed in 1976.
The ethos of Crescent College is Jesuit and Catholic. Most of the current teaching staff are lay-persons, though there are five Jesuit priests currently on the staff. In 2001 the first lay headmaster was appointed.
Crescent College excels in the fields of drama, debating, music and sport which are important dimensions of any Jesuit School. It offers a six-year curriculum, and classes are divided into five lines, each named after a Jesuit patron. Demand for places is still very high, and available places are oversubscribed each year.
MISSION STATEMENT
Crescent College Comprehensive, which incorporates the Characteristics of Jesuit education, seeks to develop a community of learning and academic excellence comprising teachers and parents collaborating to fulfil the full potential of each individual pupil. This will involve teachers, parents and pupils working together to identify and develop an openness to religious, moral, social, intellectual, cultural and physical experience and to the work of God in all its dimensions. Each individual’s talents will be developed to the level of their personal potential for the benefit of community and humanity.