Sandford Park School is an independent, non-denominational, co-educational secondary school, located in Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1922.
History
The school was founded in 1922 by Alfred Le Peton, who served as its first headmaster. Le Peton had previously served as joint headmaster of Earlsfort House School alongside Ernest Exshaw. It was decided to move the school from the terraced city-centre property of Earlsfort House to the 2.5 hectare Ranelagh property of Sandford Park, originally designed in 1894 by Thomas Edmund Hudman for James P. Pile, a property developer and Hudman’s brother-in-law. The school was founded as non-denominational, to contrast with the majority of schools in Ireland at the time, which had religious patronages. In its first year of teaching, the school had enrolled fifty-three boys. Le Peton resigned as headmaster in 1925.
In 2013, the school began accepting enrolment for girls in all year groups, and in 2021 there were 429 students attending in total, of whom 171 were girls.
School principals
Gwynn Seton Bradshaw Mack 1922–1931
Arthur Douglas Cordner 1934–46
Major P.G. Wormell 1946–53
Maurice Wilkins (Acting Headmaster) 1953–54
Trevor Dagg 1954–1960 [1st period]
Dr Hector Rex Cathcart 1960–1967
Trevor Dagg 1967–1980 [2nd period]
Ian Steepe 1980–1985
William (Bill) R. Tector 1985–1990
Dr John Harris 1990–1996
Michael Whelan 1996–2003
Edith Byrne 2003–present
Notable past pupils
Max Abrahamson, internationally renowned construction lawyer
Jonathan Philbin Bowman, journalist
Conor Cruise O'Brien, diplomat, Labour Party politician, writer and academic
Justin Keating, politician and former Labour Party cabinet minister
Graham Knuttel, painter and sculptor
Ham Lambert, international cricketer, rugby player and rugby referee
Charles Mellon, first-class cricketer
John Neill, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 2002–2011
Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, socialist and pacifist
Patrick Rooke (born 1955), Bishop of Tuam, Killala, and Achonry
Past pupils Union
The Sandford Union was inaugurated in the 1930s, to enable past pupils to keep in touch with one another and the school itself. The Sandford Union hold several events during the year culminating in the annual dinner held every year on the fourth Friday in November.
References
External links
Sandford Park School website
Sandford Park Union
Ranelagh
Secondary schools in Dublin (city) Private schools in the Republic of Ireland Educational institutions established in 1922