Notre Dame plans dedication for new center in Ireland

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - The University of Notre Dame plans to dedicate a center in Ireland that offers programs in a wide variety of academic disciplines.

The Notre Dame Center at Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, County Galway, will be dedicated Thursday. There will be a Mass in the abbey's Gothic Chapel, an academic convocation and a blessing of the center's headquarters in Kylemore's St. Joseph Hall.

Honorary doctoral degrees will be conferred on Sister Maire Hickey, who is abbess of the Benedictine Community at Kylemore, and Justice Peter Kelly, president of Ireland's High Court.

The center opened last May. It blends Notre Dame's academics with the abbey's traditional Benedictine spirituality. The center expands Notre Dame's network of five Global Gateways, located in Dublin, Beijing, Jerusalem, London and Rome.