St. Patrick's Missionary Society

St. Patrick's Society for the Foreign Missions (Latin Societas Sancti Patritii pro Missionibus ad Exteros) is an Irish Roman Catholic society of apostolic life composed of missionary priests, sometimes known as the Kiltegan Fathers from its headquarters at Kiltegan, County Wicklow. Its members use the postnominal initials of S.P.S. The Latin motto of the Society is Caritas Christi Urget Nos (2 Corinthians 5:14) or, in English, 'Christ's love compels us'.

The Kiltegan Fathers origins stem from an appeal by Bishop Joseph (Ignatius) Shanahan of the Holy Ghost Order, in 1920 to seminary students in Maynooth College for missionaries to Nigeria, Africa where he was Bishop, later that year Fr. Whitney accompanied Bishop Shanahan to Africa.

The Society was founded officially on St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1932 by Monsignor Patrick Whitney (1894 - 1942) at Kiltegan, County Wicklow, Ireland. Its original aim was the Christian evangelization of Nigeria. In 1951, the society expanded its missionary activities outside of Nigeria.

In the 1950s they society expanded, building a new college in Kiltegan, and opening a House of Studies in Sutton House, Rochestown, Douglas in Cork, with seminarians attending lectures in University College Cork.

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