History of St.Vincent's Girls School

St.Vincent's Girls' School is situated in the North Inner City in North William Street, between the North Strand and Ballybough. The school has a long history, having been established in 1825 and officially named North William Street School. It was managed by the Religious (Irish) Sisters of Charity at the request of Cardinal Cullen. At the time there were 300 pupils on roll and each teacher taught 70 pupils.

The school became part of the National System of Education in 1897 under the trusteeship of the Daughters of Charity of St.Vincent de Paul and was named
St.Vincent's Girls' National School with an official Roll Number.

1960s

The school building had become dilapidated by the middle of the century and was demolished in the early 1960s. The new school was reopened in 1966 with 20 classrooms. A cookery room, a staff room, three cloakrooms, a secretary's office, a principal's office and a spacious hall completed the accommodation. There were 600 pupils in the school as the building reopened, compared with 218 pupils today.
Although traditionally, the school principal was appointed from among the Daughters of Charity themselves, it was decided to appoint a lay principal in January 2002 and the order remains as Trustees who, with a Board of Management, are responsible for the management of the school.

1970s

In the 1970s, the school was included in the Department of Education Disadvantage Scheme and in 1996, was one of eight schools in the North East Inner City area to be part of the 'Breaking the Cycle of Educational Disadvantage' Scheme.
In recent years, the Department of Education and Science has developed new approaches to tackling Educational Disadvantage through a number of Schemes administered through its Social Inclusion Unit: Delivering Equality in Schools (DEIS - 2007) and School Completion Programme being the most recent. These have provided significant opportunities for the pupils in terms of human and financial resources which provide extra teaching personnel and funding for materials and extra-curricular activities which would otherwise not be available.