ADMISSIONS FOR FIRST YEAR SEPTEMBER 2026

• Open Evening Wednesday 1st October 2025, 6.00 pm - 9.00 pm

• Application form live on website: 1st October - 22nd October 2025

Dear Parents,

We are writing to bring you up to date on our applications for First Year 2026, to assist parents of current Sixth Class boys as much as possible in planning applications to schools in the forthcoming application window.

We have an open night on Wednesday 1st October 6.00 pm - 9.00 pm. We will welcome you here with your son. The principal and deputy principal will give a presentation and answer questions on admissions and on the school.

St Mary’s will offer 96 places in First Year 2026. This leaves us at full capacity, a school of 500 boys. The online application form, which is to be filled out by all applicants regardless of whether they previously submitted a paper form, will be on the school website between 1 October and 22 October 2025.

The school admission process is now governed by law and we are not allowed to accept applications outside of this window, either previously submitted under the old application system, or after 22 October 2025. Any previous communications with the school that said differently, were governed by a system that is now obsolete. Application forms submitted in past years - some as long as twelve years ago - are now designated as expressions of interest.

If the school is oversubscribed, the school will, when deciding on applications for admission, apply the following selection criteria in the order listed below to those applications that are received within the timeline for receipt of applications as set out in the school’s annual admission notice on www.stmarys.ie:

1. Pupils of St Mary's College CSSp Junior School whose fees are up-to-date.

2. Students who enter as part of the designated bursary scheme.

3. Brothers of present and past pupils of St Mary's College CSSp Senior School.

4. Sons of current teaching staff members.

5. Nephews, great nephews and first cousins of members of the Spiritan Congregation.

6. Sons and grandsons of past pupils of St. Mary’s provided the maximum number of places filled pursuant to that criterion does not exceed 25 per cent of the available places as set out in the school’s annual admission notice for the school year concerned. 

7. Other applications received in the annual application window, as outlined in the admissions notice. Applications received outside of this time period are not included.

In the event that there are two or more students tied for a place or places in any of the selection criteria categories above (the number of applicants exceeds the number of remaining places), a lottery will apply.

On Number 5, please note that the relationship applies to that of the student applicant - i.e. if the Sixth Class boy is a grand-nephew, he is eligible under this criteria, but if he is a great-grand-nephew, he is not. Likewise first cousin vis-a-vis second cousin or first cousin once removed. Please take this as superseding any previous correspondence with the school or previous admissions criteria.

As it stands based on expressions of interest, the data above suggests that we will be doing a lottery for those who have applied under criteria 7, namely, other applications received in the annual application window. In following such a procedure we were abiding by the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 and have no discretion whatsoever to choose one person over another, using other reasons, relationships or methodologies. If we are asked to favour a particular application, we can only repeat this. We can also point out that each year, waiting lists tend to evaporate as schools work through the application system, and we know of no students in the locality left without a place in one of the excellent schools available.