John Ireland (bishop) - Establishments

Establishments

At the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore the establishment of a Catholic university was decided. In 1885 Ireland was appointed to a committee, along with, Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, Cardinal James Gibbons and then bishop John Joseph Keane dedicated to developing and establishing the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.. Ireland retained an active interest in the University for the rest of his life.

He founded Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary the progenitor of four institutions: University of Saint Thomas (Minnesota), the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity, Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary, and Saint Thomas Academy. The Saint Paul Seminary was established with the help of Methodist James J. Hill, whose wife, Mary Mehegan, was a devout Catholic. Both institutions are located on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. DeLaSalle High School located on Nicollet Island in Minneapolis was opened in October 1900 through a gift of $25,000 from Ireland. Fourteen years later Ireland purchased an adjacent property for the expanding Christian Brothers school.

In 1904 Ireland secured the land for the building of the current Cathedral of Saint Paul located atop Summit Hill, the highest point in downtown Saint Paul. At the same time, on Christmas Day 1903 he also commissioned the construction of the almost equally as large Church of Saint Mary, for the local Immaculate Conception parish in the neighboring city of Minneapolis. It became the Pro-Cathedral of Minneapolis and was later to become the Basilica of Saint Mary, the first basilica in the United States in 1926. Both were designed and built under the direction of the French architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray.

John Ireland Boulevard, a Saint Paul street that runs from the Cathedral of Saint Paul, northeast, to the Minnesota State Capitol, is named in his honor. It was named in 1961 at the encouragement of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.