With its broad avenue and leafy grounds, Marian College is set in what is arguably the best of all possible Dublin 4 locations - by the Dodder river, next to a DART station and just a stone's throw from Lansdowne Road. A Catholic, non-fee paying second-level day school for boys, its 440-strong student body reflects the diversity of a changing city and county.
"Boys come here from all over the city, and from all sorts of backgrounds," says principal Paul Meany. "We've got students here from Wicklow and Leixlip too, boys who get up at 6.30am and come by train and bus."
Once in the school grounds, with high old trees and grassy stretches keeping a burgeoning Ballsbridge at arms length, you could be anywhere. Facilities in Marian include a heated indoor 22-metre swimming pool, fully equipped theatre, computer room, oratory, careers office, arts and crafts building and indoor and outdoor basketball courts.
The school takes its name from the year it was founded, the Marian Year of l954. The then archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, invited the Marist teaching order to set up a school in Dublin. He was familiar with their work in Australia and the wisdom of the time was that as Archbishop he was anxious to curb the growing popularity of the new Sandymount High School, one of the city's first co-educational, non-demonational institutions.
The Marists accepted the invitation and Marian College was set up on the virtual doorstep of Sandymount High School, now sadly about to close.
Today's college is run by a board of management which has representatives of the parents and teaching staff. Brother Hilary Costello of the Marists is its chairman. Set up in l988, one of its first functions was the appointment of Paul Meany as the school's first lay principal.
Meany can truly be said to have spent a lifetime in Marian College - boy and man, he's been at the college since l959. Two of his sons are now students and a third is "on the way." He arrived at the age of eight, went through to the Leaving Cert, returned in l973 to do his H Dip and in l974 joined the staff as a teacher.
His enthusiasm undimmed, his commitment palpable, Meany acknowledges that it "may seem odd" that Marian has been both his "school life and teaching life" - but, he adds, he tries to ensure that the college doesn't become his whole life. "Others on the staff have strong links with the college," he says. "There's a strong family feeling between us which is good. If the staff get on, then the students feel that and the school works."
The aim at Marian College, says the principal, is "a good academic balance, to get students to try different subjects. Intelligence isn't just singular, its multiple, so we try to draw particular skills and potential out of students. Our numbers are small enough for us to know all of the students individually, but big enough to allow us give the academic range."
The range, at junior school level, includes the basics of Irish, English, maths, history and geography as well as French or Spanish, civics, business studies, science and religious studies. The senior cycle offers, as well as the fundamental subjects, a range including French, German, Spanish, physics, chemistry, biology, applied maths, art, a number of business subjects and home economics.
Marian has taken an individual approach to the Transition Year. Starting three years ago, the school set up what Paul Meany calls "a strong Transition Year programme but one which has a policy of choice so that students can decide to either take it or go straight on to fifth year. Of the 90 or so boys who sit the Junior Cert, we find that about one third will opt to follow with a Transition Year.
"It was difficult to manage at first but, now that it's up and running and in the system, it's very workable. The feedback is very positive. We concentrate on a great deal of outdoor activities as well as on community service and work with the handicapped."
Marian College is "big into basketball" - this year alone the school team were runners up in the Bank of Ireland Senior A Cup as well as the Leinster Minor Cup. The college was league winner in table tennis, bronze medalists in the Leinster Under-19 Colleges Water Polo Championships and winners of the Dublin Indoor First Year Hurling Blitz.
Meany, looking out to the leafy trees, agrees that the school's "situation is nice. The lease was bought out recently so it'll hopefully remain as a school. We've got good local relations - Lansdowne Road allow us play rugby there, and we play Gaelic on the Clann na nGael grounds in Ringsend and soccer in the CYMS in Sandymount. We've recently reintroduced water polo and lots of the boys are keen."
