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| QUADRANGLE, MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY. -Architect Pugin undertook a labor of love, but none the less a heavy task, when he planned, and had constructed under his able supervision, the imposing quadrangular array of edifices that have supplanted, within the last half century, the old, almost ramshackle, buildings that accommodated at Maynooth the Catholic ecclesiastical students of an earlier time. Were Charles Lever to see the Maynooth College of today, he would be unable to recognize in the thoroughly equipped University, furnished with every modern requirement of a great institution of learning, the antiquated series of structures, designated the Royal College of St. Patrick, to which his novels contain allusions. The grounds of the quadrangle are kept in splendid condition, and are presentable in winter as well as in the milder seasons, because the genial climate of the south and centre of Ireland allows the growth of sub-tropical trees and shrubs the year round. It is rarely, indeed, that Ireland has "a killing frost" in the American sense of the term. Her fields are green, and her mountains snowless, unless in very exceptional seasons, from January to December. Even when snow does fall, it lasts only a few days. Maynooth, situated in an undulating country, and remote from highland ranges, possesses a most desirable climate, and is one of the healthiest localities in the beautiful Emerald Isle. |
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