The Franciscan Brothers Agricultural College which is owned and managed by the Franciscan Brothers has a mission to provide a comprehensive and competitive range of training programmes for those engaged in Agriculture and food related sectors.

The programmes have the maintenance and enhancement of the environment, countryside and rural communities as their major priorities. The college is a private college but joins with Teagasc, GMIT, VEC and FAS in delivering courses.

Mountbellew is known in Irish as 'An Creagan', the little rock, or a rocky or stony place.  The town owes its name to the Bellew family which originated in Belleau, France and came to Ireland through England at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion but did not achieve prominence until the end of the fourteenth century.  They settled in Meath and Louth.  The Bellews of Mountbellew are descended from James Bellew of Bellewstown, County Meath.

The Franciscan Brothers came to Mountbellew, Co Galway from Milltown, in Dublin, in the year 1818.  The Bellew family invited them and gave them resources of land and a house to get established.

The Brothers taught a free primary school until 1884. In 1875 they opened a secondary school (boarding) and in 1898 a special Department in the school was set up to prepare students for Teacher Training Colleges.

The Brothers changed from Secondary education to Agricultural Education in 1904 and the Franciscan Brothers’ Agricultural College was founded.  This was the first Agricultural College in Ireland.  The Department of Agriculture supported the college right from the start.  In the early years between 30 and 40 students were trained coming from all counties in Ireland.  In the 1960s student numbers rose to 60 per year.  Many of the graduates of this one year course were employed by the Department of Agriculture as Agricultural Officers, others progressed to University College Dublin to study for the degree in agriculture and others took up full time farming or jobs in the agricultural sector.

The old college was demolished in 1971 and replaced with the new one by 1975.  Subsequently, the number of students rose to 80 and by 1995 had reached 150.  For many years the college delivered a National Certificate in Agriculture to school leavers with an end of year examination.  In 1994 a modular system was introduced for the certificate course and in 2001 the National Certificate in Agriculture was replaced by a Vocational Certificate in Agriculture.  This change means that graduates have a link in to courses at Institutes of Technology.

In 1976 three Brothers from Mountbellew went to Kenya.  They founded Baraka Agricultural College, at Molo, in Nakuru district.  There is cooperation between Baraka and Mountbellew which has resulted in staff exchanges between the two Institutions.

The college established a link with Galway Regional Technical College, now known as Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), in 1986.  This cooperation between the two colleges resulted in the setting up of what is now known as the Higher Certificate in Business Studies (Agribusiness) with progression to Add-on Ordinary and Honours Degrees.  The course has been very successful with more than 600 graduates in various careers in business and agribusiness.

In 2001 a Higher Certificate in Agriculture was initiated and since 2004 there is progression on this course to an Add-on Bachelor Degree in Science in Agriculture and Environmental Management.  From September 2006 the college will offer two three year (ab initio) Ordinary Degrees.

An evening course in Business Studies for adults or mature students was commenced in 1998.