It presently has 450 students. 2004 is Clongowes' 190th academic season.

The history of the college was written by Fr. Roland Burke Savage S.J. & promulgated around 1987.

Aspects of life at Clongowes include a as punishment:

there come sextuplet class or even month forms, viz. Rudiments Grammar, Syntax, Humanities, Poetry & Rhetoric. Which are actually grouped into 3 Lines - Third, Moo & Higher. a ditch at a front of the Castle is known as the Golly Mocky; the mediaeval castle, which is the home of the religious community, was improved by the "chocolate box" nature & severity restoration in a 19th century (fashionable at a period); these are placed astride a Bulwark, which are then the ditch and wall constructed for the defense of the Picket in the 14th century; a castle is attached to the modern buildings by an elevated corridor hung by having portraits, the Serpentine Gallery referred to by James Joyce; the Boys' Chapel has an elaborate altarpiece, the big pipe-organ in the gallery, & an interesting sequence of Stations of the Cross painted by Sean Keating. A Stations come framed single per arches where it sit, & these are said that Keating avenged a Minister's refusal to invite proper frames by painting the Pontius Pilate who looked suspiciously rather a Parson. there occurs as 19th century Funfair, in which pupils 1st dare to smoke cigarettes - it so graduate to a Green Room & the back wall of the theatre stage, until it prevent higher brazenly puffing away in the toilets at Xi.15 am break-period so at Foursome.05 pm, once everybody else has never again intent on practise rugger in the rain; most of a cigaret come stock the nearby village of Clane, the habitant of which are then known as Claneites; a kick-off chant utilized by supporters at Leinster Senior Ventral suction cup rugby football games is the Wumbthe (spelling disputed), which is probably a war chant from either the sub-continent of compound India; on foremost typing a college, population come smitten per straightness of a tree-lined avenue, & so their conversation turns to Dutch elm disease and what is to become done whilst the trees tons die; there occurs as nine-hole links course, & pupils keep around to climb an tremendous hill to email a 2nd tee & weak their fag; one of a rugby football pitches is known as the Cabbage Patch; Rhetoric prevent, in which final month pupils come housed, was built in the xix seventies & is said to have the structural fault ("a giant crack") running off across it.

Famous alumni
John Bruton (Former Taoiseach) Brian Coffey Hugh Coveney Gordon D'Arcy James Joyce Thomas Francis Meagher Paul McGuinness Kevin O'Higgins Michael O'Leary George Noble Plunkett John Redmond Michael Smurfit J.T. Walsh (American Actor) David Wheatley (Irish poet) John Charles McQuaid