Irish Jesuit Alumni Sydney Dinner 2026, celebrating the milestone of 30 years of Irish gap exchanges.

Irish Jesuit schools alumni, former gap students and lovers of Ireland are invited to join for dinner, drinks and entertaining reminiscences. 

MC'd by master story teller and former Clongowes Gappy Justin Fleming (OR 2003), with special guests from the Emerald Isle, the evening promises "great craic" and a chance to connect with the witty and wonderful world of Irish alumni in Sydney. 

Date: 14 November 2026

Time: 5pm-8pm

Location: Ramsay Hall, St Ignatius College, Riverview

After: Bus/transfer to "The Diddy", 243 Longueville Road, Longueville, NSW 2066 (8pm till late)

Cost: $135 per person

Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/irish-jesuit-alumni-2026

About the celebration:
For five years, the Irish Jesuit Alumni Sydney group has been hosting long Irish lunches to connect Irish Jesuit schools alumni. This year, the group is grateful to Riverview for hosting a celebration of a very special 30th anniversary.

Irish Jesuit alumni links in Australia stretch way back to Fr Joseph Dalton SJ, an old boy of Clongowes Wood College, who founded Xavier,  Aloysius and Riverview in the 1870s and 1880s. 

That connection was revived in 1996 by the gap exchange founded by Riverview Headmaster Fr Chris Gleeson SJ and Clongowes Headmaster Fr Bruce Bradley SJ.  Riverview went on to establish exchanges with the Dublin Jesuit colleges of Belvedere and Gonzaga, while Clongowes, for a time, also connected with St Aloysius and St Joseph's.

For thirty years, graduates have been spending their first year out of school enjoying the hospitality and adventure of Irish-Australian gap exchanges, and it all started with the Riverview-Clongowes exchange of 1996 - an anniversary worth celebrating!

Enquiries: Theo Clark (OR96), Jamie Eustace (OG '01), Justin Fleming (OR03), Richard Fleming (OC '06), Patrick Fleming (OR08), : irishjesuitschoolalumnsydney@gmail.com

Since 1996, more than 100 students from Riverview and Clongowes are believed to have taken part.  The first Riverview students to travel to Ireland on the exchange were Will Sinclair, Chris Boys and John Gledhill from the Class of 1995. Will and Chris will attend the dinner. A few years earlier, Riverview Old Boy Nick Lea (OR87) had spent several months at Clongowes as a pioneer, and Nick will also be at the dinner.

Guests will include:

• alumni of Irish Jesuit schools
• Riverview Old Boys who went to Ireland as gap students
• Irish Old Boys who came to Riverview
• members of the Irish–Riverview community
• Australian Jesuit school teachers and alumni with links to Irish schools; and
• current and former gap students.

It should be a craic'er!