St. Columban's Academy 4.53

History Of St. Columban( Adapted)

SAINT COLUMBAN'S ACADEMY
(A BRIEF HISTORY)

St. Columban’s Academy was among the first parochial school in the Southern part province of Negros Occidental. The establishment of the school almost marked the coming of the Irish priest of the Columban Missionaries.

This all began when the Irish Missionaries of the Columban Society had found theirselves here in the Philippines when China in the Asian mainland closed the territory for religious activities. This incident became the province’s gain. The Most Reverent bishop of Bacolod, the late Casimiro Llandoc, DD, offered his parish’s administration to the Columban Missionaries to improve the Catholic based education here on Southern Negros- hopefully including Cauayan.

Base on that agreement, the first Columban priest arrives here in Cauayan in the year 1950 in the person of Rev Fr. Patrick Hurley to take over the retiring priest Rev Fr. Antonio Mamigo which is on of the rare local priest during that time. Fr. Hurley was successively followed by Rev Frs. Augustine Rowe, John Hynes, Colum O’ Halpin and Colum Rafferty. The priests were all products of the unique Catholic Irish educatioin greatly from the religious forms.

After their one year of arrival in Negros, then came Cauayan Academy, a private institution which offers 1st and 2nd year of secondary school in Cauayan which become the parish’s property. The Cauayan Academy had then been transferred to that old parish church house. Cauayan Academy which mostly looked like an old building, a barn like, two storey substantial building had been renovated to occupy a large amount of students, a 4- grade level version of the predecessor – now named as the Saint Columban’s Academy which became the brand new, government recognized parish school which is derived after St. Columban, a traveler monk who had started the Columban ecclesiastic order who had given recognition for spreading Christianity in their long ago pagan homeland.