Belvedere College

Belvedere College SJ is a fee paying Jesuit secondary school for boys on Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Ireland. The school has numerous alumni in the arts, politics, sports, science, and business.HistoryThe Society of Jesus was active in the area around Hardwicke Street since 1790. They founded St Francis Xavier's College in a disused convent on Hardwicke Street with nine students in 1832, three years after Catholic Emancipation, making it the second oldest Catholic college in Ireland for lay students (after Belvedere's sister college - Clongowes Wood College). In 1841, the Jesuits purchased Belvedere House (on neighbouring Great Denmark Street) which gave the College its name. George Augustus Rochfort (1738–1814), who became the Second Earl of Belvedere in 1774, built Belvedere House, whose interior decoration was carried out by Michael Stapleton, a leading stucco craftsman of his time.The College was caught up in the events of the 1916 Rising, when the British military opened fire at the Jesuit residence. The Jesuits at Belvedere and the neighbouring Gardiner Street Community helped the wounded and distributed food across the locality.