Qualla: Larne Grammar School https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Larne Grammar School https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school Larne Grammar School: Introduction https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ Read the list of former pupils and you have to do a double-take. Jonathan Rea, the Northern Irish rider who became the most successful Superbike World Champion in history. Gareth McAuley, the West Bromwich Albion centre-back who anchored Northern Ireland's defence at Euro 2016. Sir John Hermon, Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary during the worst of the Troubles. Trevor Ringland, British and Irish Lions winger. Claire Taggart, Paralympic boccia world champion. Emma McIlroy, founder of Wildfang. They all sat at the same desks in the same small grammar school in Larne, founded in 1886 with barely enough boys to keep the doors open.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Larne Grammar School: A Slow Start https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ When Sir Edward Coey and John Crawford opened the school in 1887 as an all-boys fee-paying boarding establishment, the prospects looked bleak. Mr R.M. Jones M.A. welcomed the first handful of pupils. For the next twenty years the school nearly closed several times. The combinatio...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-a-slow-start.mp3 0:06 2 full Larne Grammar School: From Wood to Concrete https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ By the early 1970s the school had outgrown its Victorian footprint and an extension added nineteen new classrooms, a sports hall, and changing rooms behind the original building. In 1987, under Headmaster D.J. Thompson, the old school was demolished entirely and replaced with a m...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-from-wood-to-concrete.mp3 0:06 3 full Larne Grammar School: A Pupil-Teacher Ratio That Helps https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ The school currently has around sixty teachers and just under eight hundred pupils, giving a pupil-teacher ratio of about 12.7 to one. That is well below the Northern Ireland average of 15.6 for grammar schools, which is itself comfortably below the UK overall average. Northern I...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-a-pupil-teacher-ratio-that-helps.mp3 0:06 4 full Larne Grammar School: The Old Boys, and Girls https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ The roster is unusually long for a school this size. Sir John Hermon was Chief Constable of the RUC from 1980 to 1989, the years of the IRA hunger strikes and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. William Craig led the Vanguard movement in 1970s loyalist politics. Robert John Gregg, working...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-the-old-boys-and-girls.mp3 0:06 5 full Larne Grammar School: Hockey, Rugby, and a 4 x 100 https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ On the field, the school punches above its weight too. The girls' hockey team won the Ulster Senior Schoolgirls' Cup in 2000, beating Ballymena Academy 2-1 in the final. In 2022, the 1st XI Hockey Team were crowned Super League Tier B Champions after beating Grosvenor Grammar Sch...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-hockey-rugby-and-a-4-x-100.mp3 0:06 6 full Larne Grammar School: Why a Small Place Produces Big Names https://qualla.com/larne-grammar-school/ Why does a small town grammar school of this size keep turning out world-level talent? Part of it is selective intake and small classes. Part of it is the cultural seriousness with which Northern Ireland has always treated education, a seriousness that survived the Troubles and n...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/b/larne-grammar-school-wp/gcgb-larne-grammar-school-why-a-small-place-produces-big-names.mp3 0:06 7 full