THE STORY OF OUR LADY AND ST PATRICK PRIMARY SCHOOL In 1876 the Sisters of Mercy opened a primary school beside their convent in John Street, Downpatrick. It had two rooms and 129 pupils in its first week, 20 boys and 109 girls. In 1892 the De La Salle Brothers came to teach at the school. By 1936, numbers of pupils had increased so much that a new school was opened in Edward Street. Then, in 1951, 280 boys processed from the Edward Street school to a new school in St Dillon’s Avenue. Meanwhile, the number of girls in the Convent of Mercy Primary School had also grown, so the school moved to the Edward Street site in 1976. In 2011, 135 years after first opening, the two schools came together again at Edward Street, as Our Lady and St Patrick Primary School. I remember it as a really nice place. It was like Nissan huts. Doors, you know that folded out the whole way down one side and that led onto a green area. There was an outside large sandpit. There were swings and one of the things that I remember was a huge tree trunk with nails in it and hammers and you could hammer the nails so this must have been a great thing you know for frustration or to feel very powerful. I can remember people being sent to hammer things, you know. If they were running about or whatever. We had little beds that were like little canvas cots. Looking back they remind me of maybe something that the forces would have had, you know little legs. You had a little symbol and my symbol was an umbrella. Your umbrella was on your blanket and the beds were stacked and they were all taken out and went down the main room for the sleep in the afternoon. You had a little towel and a face cloth with your symbol on but there wasn’t running water. They were like a little table with 4 aluminium basins. They would have poured the water in for you to wash your hands after you had been to the toilet. Kate Hanna (Description of Nursery school in Church Street)
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In those days, the boys usually spent the first 2 reception years in the convent school in Irish Street and after 2 years you are brought up to the Brothers and you began your education there. I remember you went in through the front door and up a set of steps into the classroom. It was the old convent school. It had big bench desks. It was timber floors and the desks in rows and each desk had a wee place for the ink and pencils. George Caffrey It was sad to see it demolished. It was a 6 classroom school with a large assembly hall. There was a principal’s office in it with some stores. It was probably a modern 1950 school, central heating and each classroom was constructed in such a way, there was one with elevation and just glass, no windows and there was plenty of natural light getting in. I think they were the old herringbone floor, the parquet flooring. George Caffrey We were invited here in 1892, by Bishop Henry and Father O’Kane – 3 Brothers came along. The first school, it was already there, it was in John Street where the present Patrician Youth Centre is. We were in that building until 1936 when we moved to the green site in Edward Street. The school continued there until we reached another green field site in 1951 because the numbers just grew and we got a new site. So the Brothers continued there with our lay colleagues until it closed in 2011. … Therefore the whole thing has come back to where we started you know. Brother Christopher Kelleher The 3 schools, the boys primary school and the convent school and the secondary school, all went down to the minor hall behind the Cannon’s hall and the lunches were probably spread over from 12noon to 1pm.
