A Brief History of St. Brigid’s Boys’ School

Our school is probably one of the oldest schools in South County Dublin and this year we celebrate our school’s 95th birthday. We are very proud of our history and tradition and are grateful to the parishes of Foxrock and Cabinteely for maintaining the old building so well over the years.

In 1912 the sum of £2309 was assigned to build and furnish a new school on a site on Mart Lane, Foxrock. The site was purchased by Mrs.Hamilton, Cúl na Gréine, Mart Lane, a dedicated member of Conradh na Gaeilge and a personal friend of Douglas Hyde, the first President of Ireland.

Sir Richard Orpen (of the famous Orpen family), a noted architect of the time, designed the school. He was paid the princely sum of £275 for his efforts – this indeed was a lot of money at the time. Sir Richard also designed Tullow Church on Brighton Road, Foxrock.

The school was built by Louis Monks of Dun Laoghaire at a cost of £3046 – even in those days projects went way over budget! The name of the builder can still be seen today on the manhole covers in the school grounds.

The plaque on the school wall commemorates the official opening of St. Brigid’s Schools, Foxrock on November 25th 1914 by Sir Horace Plunkett, one of the trustees. The building consisted of two schools, one for boys and one for girls. For the next 50 years the schools functioned as typical rural schools of the time. The only housing development of note during this time being St. Brigid’s Park, completed in 1953.

However, the 1960’s saw huge demographic changes in the Foxrock area – among others Kerrymount, South Park, Meadow Vale, Monaloe, McIntosh appeared on the map. Many prefabs were added to the school to cope with the rapidly increasing school going population. By the early 1980’s the schools were bursting at the seams with over 800 boys and girls.

Eventually, the long promised new school was built in The Park, Cabinteely and in November 1988 the girls moved to the new building. The boys now had Mart Lane all to themselves! The building was extensively refurbished in 1990 and again in 2002.

Today our school is known as St. Brigid’s Boys’ School, Mart Lane, Foxrock.