A group of alumni of St Finbarr’s College in Lagos, Nigeria, visited Fermoy and Cork last weekend (24th-26th April) to mark the 70th anniversary of their school, and to pay tribute to the Fermoy man who founded it.
The school was established by Fr Denis Joseph Slattery, who was born in Fermoy in 1916 and went on to become a priest with the Society of African Missions (SMA). Fr Slattery travelled to Nigeria, where he founded St Finbarr’s College in Akoka, Lagos. He passed away in 2003 and is buried at the SMA cemetery in Wilton, Cork.
From April 24th to 26th, the visitors to Fermoy were former pupils from Nigeria, North America and Europe, along with some of their spouses. The travelling party spent time in Fermoy retracing Fr Slattery’s roots and visited the primary and secondary schools he attended, as well as the Technical Institute on MacCurtain Street, which directly inspired the technical and vocational curriculum he later introduced at St Finbarr’s.
Full story in this week’s Print & Digital Edition.
