HALIFAX – St. Patrick’s High School on Quinpool Road in Halifax is currently being demolished, and while the landmark building may soon be gone, the memories of 60 years will be hard to forget for those connected with the school.
Former students and teachers are holding a reunion this Saturday.
As former student Craig MacDonald watched some of the demolition outside the fence surrounding his former high school, St. Pat’s he says “it’s going to be a void in the city, that’s for sure.”
MacDonald and others who went to the school are holding the ‘St. Pat’s Alumni – Final Farewell.’ MacDonald says he wanted to make it “something special, like Irish, St. Pat’s Fighting Irish, we have so much pride.” MacDonald said.
“We want everyone who’s attended this school to be able to come to this and have one last final farewell.”
The event will be held at Citadel High, the replacement school for both St. Pat’s and traditional rival, Queen Elizabeth High School.
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“11:00 a.m. ’til 4:00 p.m. we’ll have a BBQ and then we’ll have an alumni basketball game,” MacDonald said. “And then in the evening, we’ll have a dance and slide show.”
Citadel Principal Wade Smith went to QEH, and later became a teacher and basketball coach at St. Pat’s.
“Part of the proceeds (of the reunion) are planning to be brought back to Citadel that we can use for scholarship monies and opportunities for students who would need it,” Smith said.
Joe McSweeney attended St. Pat’s as a student, then taught there for 30 years. He says he’s sad the school building that means so much to him is being demolished after only 60 years.
“That is only the bricks and mortar and that for me, St. Pat’s is here and here with the sentiment and the memories,” McSweeney said as he points first to his heart and then to his head.
McSweeney has lot’s of memories of the school, he’s even got the official opening program from December 17th, 1954.
“The program, the agenda, some photos of the building and so on, are located in there,” McSweeny said.
The former history teacher has more nostalgia – copies of the first graduating class in 1955 and also the last graduating class in 2007. Memories a student and teacher can cherish.
“I always felt that it was important that we try to help people become privately happy and publicly useful,” said McSweeney.
A broad range of several hundred people have registered for Saturday’s event, even someone from as far away as Australia.
“I got an e-mail that there’s an ex-nun teacher, she’s 88, and there’s someone that I talked to, she was here when the doors first opened,” MacDonald said.
McSweeney is true to his Irish roots.
“If you’re lucky enough to be Irish, you’re lucky enough,” he said.
It sounds like a fun filled day. Tickets are still available for the event at Tony’s Donair on Robie Street and at Citadel High on Saturday.
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