Chapel, shrine and museum commemorating the work of the Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762-1844). Widowed young, he gave up his business and threw himself into the education of the city's impoverished youngsters.
About Edmund Rice Heritage Centre
Others joined him and by 1803 Mount Sion was established as a school, monastery, and teacher-training centre, in an era when Roman Catholic education was slowly recovering from the Penal days of "hedge schools". But as the initiative expanded, Rice as a layman had no authority in the church, and had to laboriously seek permission from the local bishop whenever one of his teacher-priest Brothers was to be relocated. In 1820 he obtained papal authority to manage these Christian Brothers, and the scheme extended geographically and to secondary education. A minority remained subject to the bishops under the earlier arrangements and these were called the Presentation Brothers. Both societies remain active internationally, but the Christian Brothers' regime in the 20th and 21st centuries was marked by systematic physical and sexual abuse of their pupils. Rice lived in retirement at Mount Sion and died there. In the 20th century a campaign began for his beautification. In 1976 a boy who seemed sure to die of a gangrenous colon had a relic of Rice placed at his bedside and recovered fully; post hoc ergo propter hoc and in 1996 Rice was declared a saint.
Plan your visit
- Where: Mount Sion, Barrack St X91 KH90 (Waterford)
- Hours: Mon-Fri 9AM-5PM, Sat 10AM-2PM
- Price: Free
- Phone: +353 51 874 390
- Web: edmundrice.ie
Details sourced from Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Published on 30 October 2026 at 12:00 pm