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Tara Hall - Our History The story of the school's beginning is a simple one -- a young boy on the street with nowhere to call home, and not much hope of finding one. In 1969 Father Owen O'Sullivan gave that boy, and then another, a home in the rectory of St. Cyprian's Church in Georgetown. Less than a year later, another boy arrived. Running out of room at the rectory, he rented a small house on South Island Road for his growing family. That
house in turn soon became too crowded for the growing number of neglected,
homeless and underprivileged boys. In April 1970, Father O'Sullivan
and the boys moved to Black Mingo Creek. Father O'Sullivan named the
site for Tara in his native Ireland. The Hill of Tara was known as the
home of Irish kings for 1,000 years. Almost as soon as it began, Tara Hall was near closing due to a lack of money. Since it had no outside affiliation, church or otherwise, it depended on small individual donations -- a practice the school carries on today. Rather than sending the boys away, the priest made an appeal through the newspaper, radio and to anyone who would listen. His
plea touched the late Thomas Yawkey, owner of the Boston Red Sox and
a large landowner in Georgetown County. The Yawkey’s gave 11 1/2 acres
of land on Black Mingo Creek as a Christmas present to Tara Hall for
a permanent home. Since
those early days, over 500 boys have passed through the entrance to
Tara Hall. Father O'Sullivan retired in 1978 due to ill health, but his dream of "little bit of heaven" lives on. Today Tara Hall operates continually at or near its capacity of 24 boys. Jim Dumm, Father O'Sullivan's first volunteer staff member, now serves as director.
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