He had joined his efforts to those of Francis Place, of Westminster, and other philanthropists, to relieve and improve the condition of the working classes, labouring especially to establish schools for them on the Lancasterian system, and promoting the formation of savings banks.
There are two libraries; one founded in 1836, and now a public library in the Atheneum building; and the other in what is now the School of Industrial and Manual Training (1904), founded in 1827 as a Lancasterian school by Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin (1759-1839), whose ancestors were Nantucket people.
The town is the seat of other important Catholic establishments, including an Ursuline convent; a Presentation convent; St Patrick's Catholic College (1829) for ecclesiastical students, where was held in 1850 the synod of Thurles; and an establishment of Christian Brothers, who devote themselves to the instruction of boys on the Lancasterian method.