History of St. Marys N.S.

Scoil Mhuire, Stranorlar first opened on 17th February 1958. It replaced the old school which had been in existence since 1888. This new school was built to accomodate 300 pupils with seperate schools for boys and girls.  The old school had to be demolished in order to give clear access to the new one.  Cars were a rarity at the time so there were gardens in front of the school where the car park is in now and entry was gained from a gate close to the footpath which runs along in front of the church.  Each school had its own shelter and an area for bicycles. 

Growing numbers led to a four classroom extension being added in the late Sixties.  The General Purposes room was added in 1974.  Further increases in numbers have necessitated the provision of nine pre-fabs which are used by some mainstream classes and also by smaller groups for Learning or Language Support.  The demands and pressures created by a combination of modern society and a large school population have necessitated the installation of an alarm system by ADT.  We also have CCTV cameras which were installed by Swift Security.

The two schools almagamated in 1988 with Mrs Pauline Hegarty taking on the role of Principal.  On her retirement in December 2000, Mrs Hegarty was succeeded by Mrs Maire Masterson.  The current principal is Mr Fintan Keating who took up his position in June 2007.

Numbers continued to grow in the intervening years since almagamation and in 2008 we had 515 pupils of whom 10% are non-nationals.  There were 18 mainstream teachers, 6 teachers on the SET team and 1 Language Support teacher.  The school also had 10 S.N.A.'s, a school secretary, school assistant and a caretaker on staff.

                                          Entrance to the boys school

Oldest photo of "old" school