St Dominic

We are learning about St Dominic.

St Joseph's Cathedral is a Dominican school.

Our school was the first Catholic school established in Otago. In 1863, Father Moreau, the first resident priest in Otago opened a Catholic school on the hill below St Joseph’s Church, on Rattray Street.

There were two classrooms - one for boys and one for girls.

In 1871 a group of ten Dominican Sisters from Dublin Ireland, with the support of Bishop Moran, Dunedin’s first Bishop, arrived and took over the running of the school, naming it St Joseph’s Cathedral School.

Our Dominican Sisters.

The journey was a long and at times difficult one, with the ship they were sailing on nearly becoming shipwrecked.

They arrived in Port Chalmers, Dunedin on the 18th of February 1871. They travelled directly in to Dunedin city, to St Joseph’s Cathedral where Father Moreau and Bishop Moran said Mass followed by a feast of welcome.

Within two days of arriving in Dunedin, the Sisters were teaching at St Joseph’s Primary School (now known as St Joseph’s Cathedral School)!