About

Our history begins when the new estate of Grange Park opened in 1967/1968. For a long time the site was home to who schools until 1996 when St. Mary’s building was given to the community as a Resource centre. When the new estate of Grange Park opened in 1967/1968 the area was part of Raheny Parish. The Parish Priest of Raheny at that time was Monsignor Fitzpatrick and he applied for permission to establish two schools – a boy’s and a girl’s school to serve what was to be the new Parish of Grange Park.
On 5th May 1969, 80 children were enrolled in Junior/Senior Infants and first class in the newly built school called St. Benedict’s. As the area developed the number of pupils enrolled increased rapidly so by July 1973 there was a total of 972 children enrolled from Junior Infants to Sixth Class. To accommodate these numbers and in line with educational thinking at the time, St. Mary’s Junior School was opened for Junior Infants to Second Class, and St. Benedict’s catered for Third to Sixth class.
Numbers continued to increase at a very rapid rate so that by 1978 there were approx. 1000 pupils in each school making St. Mary’s the largest junior school in Ireland with an enrolment of 1100 pupils.
At their peak, both St. Benedict’s and St. Mary’s had 9 classes at the same level. In addition to a total of forty classrooms between both schools, it was necessary to erect seven prefabricated classrooms. In the late eighties, enrollment began to decrease due to demographic changes. The prefabricated classrooms were removed and the existing playing field was developed.
St. Mary’s moved premises to refurbished classrooms in St. Benedict’s in 1995. In March 1996 St. Mary’s building was given to the community as a Resource Centre.