Londonderry Schools history

For 30 years, from 1868, Foyle College had to compete with a vigorous rival in the Londonderry Academical Institution.

The first of these, the Ladies' Collegiate School, was set up in 1877 by the Misses McKillip - pioneers in the movement for higher education for women in Ireland.

The Honourable The Irish Society, which contributed to the funds of both schools, proposed a scheme of amalgamation, and negotiations finally resulted in the passing of the Foyle College Act in 1896, the united school retaining the name and with it claiming the traditions of the older school.

At the top of Lawrence Hill, Miss J. Kerr had opened St Lurach's College circa 1900 - this school also took boarders.

1910 Mary Eva Kelly, widow of the Young Irelander Kevin Izod O’Doherty (d.

Attempts to remove this influence, such as the MacPherson Bill (1919), mainly failed because of opposition from the Catholic Church and their allies in the Nationalist Party.

The Government of Ireland Act 1920, section five, forbade the devolved Northern Ireland parliament from endowing any religious body with state funds: if schools wanted funding they could no longer be denominationally controlled.

From the outset of his appointment, in a speech to the Northern Ireland Senate in June 1921, Londonderry made it very clear what his hopes were:

Important to nationalists, though largely overlooked at the time due to the oath row, was the Method of Voting and Redistribution of Seats Act (1922) passed in September; it abolished proportional representation in local elections.

Despite the relatively successful though transient outcome to the training crisis it could not hide the fact that the 1923 act was fatally damaged.

Protestant opposition grew throughout 1924 gaining popular support.

Persistence paid off in January 1925 when O’Donnell succeeded Logue as Archbishop of Armagh.

By 1928 Duncreggan, formerly the home of the late William Tillie, H.M.L., had been purchased and the boarders were transferred there from St Lurach's.

Following the Second World War, and as a consequence of the many changes brought about by the 1947 Education Act, the governors acquired a site at Springtown on Northland Road, overlooking the school playing‑fields, to build a new school.

D. Akenson, Education and Enmity (Belfast 1973).

In October 2007, the school celebrated its 390th anniversary with a plaque commemorating headmasters of the school since 1617.