Bishop Foy School has educated young people in Waterford for the past 260 years but is now to close.
Founded in 1707 by the Right Reverend Nathaniel Foy, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Bishop Foy School provided free education in Waterford city for Protestant boys from families who might not otherwise have had the means for education..
In 1808 the school expanded into a boarding school and moved to Grantstown, where sports fields are still located. 1921 saw it relocate to the former Bishop's Palace on The Mall, where it became one of the country's leading co-educational schools, and opened its doors to young people from other denominations.
Pupil numbers have dwindled in recent years however, and the unfortunate reality is that Bishop Foy School is too small to continue to be viable into the future.
Department of Education rules state that a school must have a minimum of one hundred and fifty students on its roll books, and with a Protestant population in Waterford city of four hundred, there are not enough families to supply the necessary day pupils. The recent Church of Ireland Synod on Education recognised this issue when it reported that
Ultimately there would be room for only one large co-educational school in the south east.
Several attempts have been made to secure funding for the construction of a new school building, but to date none have come to fruition. There has also been talk of amalgamating with the Newtown School in Waterford, run by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
Headmaster George Langley feels that the closure of the school is of deep significance, as it will herald the end for similar smaller Protestant schools across the country. Boarding school has been presented as an alternative, but it is not an option for many Protestant families,
An effort should be made to keep at least some of these schools open.
This report for 'Newsbeat' was broadcast on 30 March 1967. The reporter is Bill O’Herlihy.
'Newsbeat' was a half-hour feature programme presented by Frank Hall and ran for seven years from September 1964 to June 1971. 'Newsbeat' went out from Monday to Friday on RTÉ television and reported on current affairs and issues of local interest from around Ireland. The final programme was broadcast on 11 June 1971.
