St. Paul's and St. Anne's Park

The brothers Arthur and Benjamin Lee Guinness built up an estate of nearly 123.75 hectares from 1835 onwards in the Clontarf/Raheny area and called the estate St. Anne's after the Holy Well of the same name on the lands. Sir Arthur Edward Guinness (Lord Ardilaun) was the person most responsible for expanding and developing the estate and gardens and planted evergreen (holm) oaks and pines along the main avenue and estate boundaries.

Lord and Lady Ardilaun had no children and the estate passed to their nephew Bishop Plunkett in the 1920s. In 1937, he decided he could no longer maintain such a large estate and negotiations with the Corporation resulted in the house and estate being sold to the Corporation for approximately £55,000 in 1939. Bishop Plunkett retained Sybil Hill (now St. Paul's College) as a private residence with 30 acres of parkland. In December 1943, the main residence of St. Anne's "The Mansion" was gutted by a fire and the ruins demolished in 1968.

St. Paul's College

St. Paul’s College began in the former bishops house in 1950 after the Archbishop of Dublin Dr. Charles McQuaid requested the Vincentian order to open a Catholic Boys school in a rapidely expanding reas of the north city.  Soon the first section of the school was built.

St. Paul’s College in Raheny, Dublin is a Catholic secondary school for boys, under the trusteeship of the Vincentian Fathers – priests of St. Vincent de Paul. Visit Vincentians.ie

St. Paul's is overseen by a Board of Management comprising representatives of the trustees, parents and teaching staff, and directed by a Principal, assisted by a Deputy Principal. Each year has a Head, and each class a Class Tutor.

St. Paul’s College is a medium sized school of 600 pupils. The school follows the Irish Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate (ordinary and vocational) programmes, and achieves above-average results at all levels.

The school has grounds of over 18 acres, including its own all-weather synthetic grass pitches along with ordinary grass playing fields, all of which it also rents to sports groups and private parties. St. Paul's has a strong track record in sports, notably in schools rugby but also in soccer, Gaelic football, hurling, basketball, golf and athletics.

From the Dublin City Council website