Founded by the Patrician Brothers, a religious order, it has approximately 800 students on roll and, in recent years, has had success in a wide range of sporting activities including soccer, rugby, basketball, rowing, Gaelic games, athletics, and table tennis.

St Joseph's College (The Bish) was established in 1862 due to the absence of a Catholic Intermediate School for boys in the city.

When the school was established the word seminary had no ecclesiastical connotations[citation needed] and there was in fact a "Seminary For Young Ladies" further down Nuns' Island, by the 1930s the word had come to mean a college for the training of candidates for the priesthood,[citation needed] and at the express desire of Bishop Michael Browne the Brothers changed the name to "St. Joseph's College", and in the 1970s Bro.

In 1930 the Brothers acquired the bonded store belonging to Persse's Distillery, renovated it and transferred the seventy Intermediate pupils across the road.

[citation needed] It did not acquire its own boathouse until 1955, when the Menlo Emmet's donated their Woodquay premises to the school under the agreement it should never be used for anything but the development of rowing.

[citation needed] The Bish has been remarkably successful[tone] in producing quality rugby teams and players since the school was founded.