URSULINE COLLEGE’S €15M PLAN
URSULINE College is this week lodging a planning application with Sligo County Council for a €15m development of its facilities at Finisklin.
The development project is a combination of renovation, refurbishment and new build.
It will include new classrooms, science, technology, computer and home economics facilities, a new library, new canteen facilities and a prayer and meditation area. An important feature of the development plan is the conversion of what was formally the convent chapel into a music and performance space.
The sports hall will undergo significant renovation and will be linked to the newly constructed facilities. A range of tennis courts will complement the astroturf hockey pitch that was constructed in 2017.
School principal Sr Mairead O’Regan said: “This is a significant milestone in our journey with the Department of Education and Skills. “Our shared ambition is to provide resources that will serve the Sligo region well into the 21st century.” Award-winning Westport-based company Simon J Kelly is the architect involved in the project. Sr Mairead said the college’s board of management team had been working with Dermot McCabe of SJK and his colleagues on the design team to get to the planning application stage. “We are delighted to have reached this milestone in Covid times as another academic year enters its final weeks,” she said.
The project is designed to provide quality education facilities for up to 750 secondary students and staff. The Ursulines have an unbroken 170-year relationship with Sligo, having arrived in 1850.
A free primary school was built at the Finisklin site in 1851. Four years later a two-storey block was erected. By the 1930s a new wing was required to accommodate increasing student numbers. It included a large chapel to seat 160 boarders, a concert and recreational hall, classrooms and dormitories.
Major extensions were added in the 1920s, 1950s, 1990s and 2005-06, and stand-alone classrooms were built between 2012 and 2015.
But the proposed new development is the most substantial investment at the Finisklin campus in a century. Ursuline College currently has 700 students and 60 staff members including teachers, special needs assistants and administrative and support staff.
Boarding facilities at the college were phased out from 1982 and since then Ursuline College has drawn all students from the greater Sligo area. The board of management say that the new development “seeks to retain and re-use the essence of the college’s historic structure while future-proofing the campus with new facilities”. They and Sr Mairead are excited about the potential of the development project.
They said: “Ursuline College has provided education for the community through the decades. This substantial investment by the state will allow that relationship to continue and thrive into the future.”