St. Patrick's Classical School

St Patrick's Classical School is a Roman Catholic-run school for boys in Navan, County Meath. It has produced a number of politicians, journalists, Irish sports personalities, broadcasters and two winners of the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe. History St Patrick's Classical School was founded in 1930 when the Diocese of Meath's seminary, St. Finian's College, which had previously been the main provider of denominational education for boys locally, moved from Navan to the new diocesan capital, Mullingar in County Westmeath. The school's patron is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath. The school was previously located in a small building on Academy Street in the centre of the town, but in 1970 it moved to a new campus at the outskirts of the town. As its name indicated, it placed an emphasis on the teaching of the classics, Latin and Greek, rather than vocational subjects. Until the granting of "free education" by the Irish Minister for Education, Brian Lenihan (his predecessor who proposed free education, Donogh O'Malley died before he could implement the plan), the school operated as a fee-paying school. Its education is now free. Though predominantly Roman Catholic, the school also has pupils of other religions and no religion. Although the Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath remains the school patron, the school has long been under lay control and the last member of the clergy that was principal of the school was Fr Michael Sheerin in 1988. The school no longer has any priest on its teaching staff.