Brief History of Our Lady of Good Counsel National Schools:

In 1939 most of Drimnagh was farmland and was part of the parish of Terenure. Dublin Corporation housing policy led to the zoning of Drimnagh for both private and public housing. In all 5,000 houses were planned. Fr. Burke, parish priest of Rialto, planned the new schools. They would consist of three primary schools grouped together in the centre of the new parish of Drimnagh. There would be a boys’ school to be managed by the parish and a mixed infants’ and a girls’ school to be managed by the Sisters of Mercy.

The first of the local authority houses built by 1940 had been allocated to families from condemned inner city tenements or from other over-crowded conditions. As a consequence of this re-location large groups of boys were to be seen roaming aimlessly in their new unfamiliar surroundings. To provide a means of gainfully directing their energies curate Fr. Carney set up the St. John Bosco Social Clubs for Boys in 1941.

World War 2 was well under way when this development was taking place. Building materials of all kinds were scarce and expensive yet the schools, church and convent were completed ahead of schedule. This was a remarkable achievement by the builder Mr. Macken.

The New Schools:

The boys’ school opened on the 1st July 1943. Enrolment on the first day was 1,094. The manager was Fr. Traynor, P.P. of the newly constituted parish of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mourne Road. The Secretary of the Department of Education attended the official opening.

The convent schools were opened formally by the then Minister for Education, Thomas Derrig, on the 10th January 1944. Due to the large scale of the project the event was given extensive coverage by the national newspapers.

The Evening Herald that evening reported: “The space covered by the schools – one of the finest schools not only in Ireland but in Europe – extends over 7 acres. In the girls’ school there are 44 classrooms and in all there are 76 rooms. In the boys’ school, which adjoins the girls’ school, there are 22 classrooms and 37 rooms' altogether”.

The combined maximum enrolments in the three schools were enormous – 2,600 in the infants’ and girls’ schools and 1,200 plus in the boys’ school, totalling over 3,800 pupils. At the time they were considered to be the largest schools in Europe.

The Secondary Tops:

Secondary schooling was fee-paying up to 1967. As enrolments at second level were increasing in the 1950s pupils of poor means were increasingly being left out in the cold. In response the girls’ and boys’ schools expanded their educational provision significantly by establishing secondary tops. Operating under the rules for National Schools they offered free second level education up to Intermediate Certificate level.

The boys’ secondary top was closed in 1967. The pupils had to seek secondary education outside Drimnagh. The girl’s secondary top became a fully-fledged secondary school in 1969.

Re-Organisation:

Enrolments in the three primary schools fell rapidly during the 1960s for demographic reasons. The fall was exacerbated in the boys’ school by the lack of local secondary education as parents placed their sons in primary schools attached to secondary schools outside Drimnagh. The parish schools were re-organised in 1973. The girls’ secondary became co-educational in 1973, which solved the problem of the post-primary placement of the pupils of the boys’ school. In return the boys’ school vacated the building in Mourne Road, which was taken over by the secondary school. The boys’ school was re-located in its present position in the top corridor of the right wing of the girls’/infants’ school building.

Sharing the same building has led to co-operation between the schools on common interests. The designation of the three schools as disadvantaged for educational purposes was achieved when the schools made a joint submission in 1986. In the mid 1990s £½ million was spent on a new roof and a new heating system – much of the original heating system had been salvaged from Áras an Uachtaráin by the school builder when a new system was installed there.