Founded in 1669, it is one of the oldest schools in Ireland and was also known as the Blue Coat School.[3] Although priority is given to those of the main Protestant denominations, as a Christian school, it is attended by students of other Christian denominations and other faiths. The school's colours are navy and gold. The school crest is three burning castles with the date "1669", almost identical to the crest for Dublin city.[4] The current headmaster is Mark Ronan.[5]
Historyedit
Foundingedit
The school was founded in 1669 as The Hospital and Free School of King Charles II and was located in Queen Street, Dublin. King's Hospital was a continuation of the old Free School of Dublin.[6] On 5 May 1674, the school opened with 60 pupils, including 3 girls.[7] From 1783 to 1971, the school was located in Blackhall Place, Dublin, currently the headquarters of the Law Society of Ireland.
The take-over of Morgan's School (1957) contributed to steadily increasing numbers of students, and by 1970, a need for extra space and facilities led to the move from the city centre to a modern purpose-built school set in its own 100-acre (400,000 m2) site on the banks of the River Liffey in Palmerstown, County Dublin.
Erwin Schrödingeredit
A 57-year-old manuscript by the Nobel Prize in Physics winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger resurfaced at the school in 2012.[9] Entitled "Fragment From An Unpublished Dialogue Of Galileo", it was written for the school's 1955 edition of the annual Blue Coat magazine to coincide with Schrödinger leaving Dublin to take up his appointment as Chair of Physics at the University of Vienna.[10] Schrödinger wrote the manuscript for the school's former English teacher and Editor of the Blue Coat magazine, Ronnie Anderson (now deceased), a friend of Schrödinger when he lived in Dublin. It is now in the possession of King's Hospital alumnus Professor Jonathan Coleman in CRANN at Trinity College Dublin.[9]
Structureedit
The school is co-educational and caters for some 720 pupils, roughly 440 day pupils and 280 boarders in 2018/19.[11] The King's Hospital has students from all over Ireland and from overseas. Students from Germany and Spain are the most common international students.[citation needed]
The School is divided into five boarding houses: Bluecoat, Mercer, Grace, Morgan and Ormonde and five day pupil houses. Each boarding house has its own resident housemaster or housemistress.[citation needed]
Sportedit
The school has a gymnasium and sports hall with an advanced fitness center. The school also has access to a swimming pool, grass hockey pitch, rugby pitches and tennis courts.[citation needed]
Various sports (with a focus on rugby) are played on campus and training is provided by staff. The school has teams for rugby, hockey, cricket, athletics, cross-country, badminton, soccer, basketball and swimming.[12]
^Falkiner, Frederick Richard (1906). The foundation of the Hospital and Free school of King Charles II., Oxmantown Dublin: commonly called the Blue coat school. Palmerstown, Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker.
^"The King's Hospital School. One of Ireland's leading boarding schools. - Kings Hospital School".
^"The King's Hospital, Church of Ireland Co-educational Day and Boarding School Dublin Ireland". Kingshospital.ie. 4 October 2012. Archived from the original on 29 January 2013. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
^CRANN. "Prof Jonathan Coleman". CRANN. Retrieved 5 April 2014.