St. Finbarr's College, Farranferris

Farranferris was a secondary school, on the north side of Cork City, Ireland.

In the 1870s the Seminary for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cork and Ross, Saint Finbarr’s Seminary, was located at Saint Patrick’s Place in Cork City (in the red-brick building where Cork's 96FM is based now). This premises was inadequate because attendees requiring boarding accommodation had to live offsite (in a house called ‘Carolina’ in Montenotte).

From 1883-5 a new college was built at Farranferris on the northside of the City (Farranferris – land of Ferris, supposedly Ferris was an old English landlord in the area). It was constructed by E.P. O'Flynn at a cost of £17,000 to designs by Samuel Francis Hynes (it is listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritige as a "fine and imposing example of late Victorian ecclesiastical architecture in the Gothic Revival style").

The new college opened in September 1887; the pupils who had lived in the house in Montenotte moved to the new dorms and the old classrooms at Saint Patrick’s Place were handed over to the Christian Brothers (who founded a new school in its place).

In 1960, St Finbarr's College, Farranferris was expanded (to the designs of James Boyd Barrett) to provide extra schoolroom accommodation and it began to take non-seminary boarders.

With time, Farranferris began to accept pupils from the city as day students.

The uniform worn by students was a wine-coloured jumper with grey shirt and trousers.

The centenary of the founding of the seminary was celebrated in 1987.

Farranferris closed to boarding pupils at the end of the 1999-2000 academic year and the college closed fully in 2006.

The school was successful at hurling, having won the Dr. Harty Cup and Dr. Croke Cup on several occasions.

...
Wikipedia