Regulations at All Hallows College were unequivocal. Immediate expulsion resulted from "striking another in passion"; "introducing or reading books injurious to faith or morals"; "any conversation or discourse contrary to faith or morals"; or "staying in another student's room, the door being closed". Even on fleeting trips outside the college in Drumcondra, expulsion resulted from "culpably separating from the body of students when on a public walk".
The Vincentian-run seminary was a self-sufficient universe, with its own farm managed by a man who tried for the Vincentian brothers before starting work there in 1933. His son, the present Taoiseach, may experience a curious resonance when tending his flowerbeds in Beresford Estate, built in a field where he frequently thinned turnips in childhood.
Theatre ban
In 1968, with clerics barred from the theatre, Maureen Potter made an illicit proposition from the Gaiety to a priest there: "If you desire to see our panto from the wings, as quite a number of clerics do, please do not hesitate to contact me."
From 1842 adolescents entered All Hallows to train for the priesthood in cloistered isolation, then - as products of a missionary institution - found themselves dispatched on terrifying treks world-wide.
For most this maiden voyage marked their first time abroad, and often their last glimpse of Ireland. The Tradition of Mission exhibition in All Hallows College, Grace Park Road (fruit of three years' work by the archivist, Colm McQuinn and recently launched by Bertie Ahern) is open daily to college visitors. It vividly recreates these journeys with old letters, photographs, DVD displays and videos.
Maynooth priests were guaranteed instant respect (and more trust than is wise for any person), upon their first posting in Ireland. But having endured long voyages (those to Australia being frequently on convict ships), plus additional journeys by stagecoach, oxen and elephant, their All Hallows counterparts often faced anti-Catholic prejudice if ministering to Irish emigrants abroad. The worst postings involved fever epidemics, famine and tribal warfare.
One priest wrote back from Mauritius in 1873: "The life of a priest here incessant labour. The frightful fever still carries off thousands of victims . . . if you could send out 10 strong young lads what a blessing." Strength was vital. In 1882, Melbourne's archbishop complains: "Two or three young priests are delicate . . . many such would be a serious embarrassment . . .bear in mind this diocese is not an invalid station."
Irish priests were foot-soldiers for ferocious field-generals like the Bishop in Illinois, in 1881: "Your priest shows I understand no inclination to drink. . .nine-tenths of the priests who go to ruin in this country fall through liquor." Or Birmingham's bishop in 1942: " You can produce a good priest who can talk the king's English . . . well and good. Unfortunately some of the priests of Eire might be talking Hebrew for all people here can understand."
Acts of bravery
Panels document wartime acts of bravery. It would be nice to see one panel devoted to those who didn't make it, who cracked under the strain of intolerable climates and self-doubt, those who struggled and failed with alcohol, sexual longing and loneliness. But perhaps, like most families, these are the ones who never write home and vanish off the margins of history.
Nothing charts the rise and decline of Catholic Ireland so vividly as the group ordination photographs lining the long corridor adjoining the exhibition. Panels of young faces stare intently out with their first posting listed.
By 1962 their numbers are so swollen there is barely room to accommodate all 44 photographss of priests ordained that year. By 1970 the umbers dip below 20, then into single figures and by 1998 - the most recent ordinations - just two.
Yet the corridor is thronged with young people. Students today are overwhelming female, a vibrant cacophony of colour replacing the black robes. Their shoes clatter the stairwells, voices wafting towards attics where ancient sets of the annals for the propagation of the faith make strange reading with their zeal for converts and sense of unquestioning righteousness.
The college is in the process of reinventing itself, creating new roles for a new century. African students reverse the original voyages as they join the full-time and part-time courses for lay people and religious at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. Preparation for ministry continues, for a new type of student who must baffle any ghosts in the bustling offices of Third World organisations upstairs.
"Huge changes"
It seems a matter of time before the circle turns fully, with young African priests arriving here, while in an African seminary their photograph will list their first missionary postings as "Dublin" or "Kerry".
As the college president, Father Mark Noonan, says: "We have been caught up in the huge changes in church and society in the past 20 years. It has been difficult. We have attempted to adapt to changed circumstances and All Hallows has shown itself to be flexible and creative."
Leaving, I seek the photograph of an ordination done by Perth's Archbishop Prendiville, who seems a strong candidate as patron saint of second chances.
An ecclesiastical Sean Lemass, he returned to officiate here after being expelled as a student for poker-playing during a retreat.
Outside, on land sold to fund the continued restoration, a builder erects luxury houses. Inside, the Tradition of Mission exhibition yields a different glimpse into a vanished society and charts an ongoing interact with a changed world.