The College celebrated the feast of St Malachy on the 3rd of November in a very special way this year. There was the usual mass for the whole school in St Patricks but the day was also marked with the official Blessing and unveiling of the new statue of the Malachy that will dominate the main corridor of the school. The statue was first announced at the 175th Dinner in the Great Hall at Queens. The work of art was to be a gift from St Malachy’s Old Boys and the priests of the diocese. The sculptor commissioned for the work was Brid Ni Rinn, a Dublin artist who had already demonstrated her skill in the sculpture of St Bernard for the rebuilding of the church named after him in 2003. It was very fitting that these two saints, such friends in life, be artistically recreated together.
The statue was blessed by Bishop Walsh, past President, past Chairman of the Board of Governors and long time friend of the College.
Malachy’s mitre and staff are not of the modern design but are accurate reproductions of the ones he would have used. The hands of the statue are slightly larger than life to reflect the physical work that St Malachy did in his ministry when he himself worked manually in the rebuilding of Bangor Monastery.
The statue was placed at the main pupils’ entrance, at the end of the Presidents’ corridor and appropriately facing up the corridor to the College Chapel.