St. Columb's College, Derry - a brief overview.

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St Columb’s College in the city of Londonderry (Derry) was opened in 1879. It was built to accommodate between 30 and 40 boarders and at the time was regarded as a large school. Today it is a very large catholic grammar school and has around 900 pupils who are all boys. The school grew extremely quickly and operated on two sites for many years. It is now located on 40 acres of prime land in the Pennyburn area of the city. The college is unique in having two former pupils who are Nobel Laureates. Seamus Heaney received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. In 1998 John Hume shared the Nobel Peace Prize with David Trimble. The college accepts around 220 pupils into year 8 and demand is for these places is usually high.

St Columb’s College uses the new SEAG Single Entrance Transfer Test results as part of its intake criteria into year 8.