In the extensive media coverage of Rory McIlroy’s, ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to win the Open at Royal Portrush and his recent Master’s triumph, it was sometimes mentioned that he is a former pupil of Sullivan Upper School in Holywood, Co Down.
You may even have heard that the school was particularly supportive of young McIlroy’s early career and with the understanding and authority of his school principal, he was allowed extensive absence from school to allow him to take part in many golf tournaments around the world.
However, it is not widely known or appreciated that Rory’s alma mater takes its name from Dr Robert Sullivan who was a significant figure in the history of education in Ireland.
Robert Sullivan’s father, Daniel, is thought to have come from Co Kerry to take up a post in the revenue service in Holywood and Robert was born there on January 3rd, 1800.
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His father left home and left Robert and his three brothers to be brought up in relative poverty by their mother Mary (nee McClement).
Robert excelled at school and was given a free place in 1819 at the Academical Institution in Belfast. This establishment survives to this day as the Royal Belfast Academical Institution or “Inst”. The story goes that, at least for a time, he walked the eight miles or so there and back daily from his home in Holywood.
After leaving Belfast he seems to have worked as a private tutor at Tyrrel’s Park in Co Westmeath, Thurles and Dublin and earned enough money to send some back to his mother in Holywood.
Then he went on to study law at Trinity College Dublin in 1824 and graduated in 1829 obtaining an MA in 1832.
The national system of education in Ireland was established in 1831 by ministerial directive under the auspices of the then Irish chief secretary, Lord Stanley. A board of commissioners of national education was set up and schools associated with the board were to be known as national schools.
In 1832 Robert Sullivan was appointed as one of the four inspectors of schools for Ireland, with responsibility for Ulster. Sullivan fully subscribed to the principle of non-sectarian or non-denominational education introduced by the Stanley reforms.
He saw the role of the teacher as crucial in countering the prejudice and intolerance found in society
Soon after taking up his post as school inspector, Sullivan observed a great deficiency in the availability of suitable textbooks used in the national schools. He then began, to write a number of school textbooks himself, including subjects such as geography, English and also published a dictionary,. The books were initially declined by the commissioners of education and then, when published on his own account, were sold to the board of education at a reduced price. In 1868, the year of Sullivan’s death, his books were selling at a rate of a quarter of a million copies per year.
In 1838, Sullivan accepted the position of professor of teacher training at the board’s training college in Marlborough Street, Dublin and concurrently as superintendent of the central model schools beside the college. In these roles up to 1868, Sullivan exercised a great influence on teachers and teaching practices throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.
After his death, his executors carried out his instructions to distribute a portion of the £45,000 he had accrued from his years of work and sale of his textbooks. About £4,000 went to the existing national schools in Holywood which later merged with another school to form Holywood Primary school which continues to serve the town today. The original building, now restored and refurbished, still exists in the main street of Holywood and is home to the town library.
A further £8,000 to £9,000 was left at the discretion of the trustees to promote national or unsectarian education in Holywood. This was used to set up the Sullivan Upper School for older children in 1877 and moved to its present site at the western edge of the town in 1939.
As part of Sullivan’s non-sectarian legacy, the board of governors of the school included representatives from all the churches in Holywood at the time and indeed still does.
Today, the current Sullivan Upper School is a successful and highly regarded non-denominational Voluntary Grammar School with about 1200 students and an associated Prep School of about 200. It takes its name from its great benefactor as well as the Sullivan family coat of arms and its motto, which makes it, if not the only school, then one of the very few, to have a motto in Irish: “Lámh foisdineach an uachtar” (With the gentle hand foremost).
Prof Robert Joseph Sullivan was laid to rest in 1868 in the Old Priory church in Holywood. Nearby, a blue plaque, provided jointly by the Ulster History Circle and Sullivan Upper School, is to be found, close to the location where the thatched cottage in which he was born once stood.
It describes him simply as an educationalist and benefactor.
John Stevenson was the Principal of Sullivan Upper School from 1998 to 2010
