Qualla: St Michael's College, Enniskillen

St Michael's College, Enniskillen: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ennis461, CC BY-SA 4.0. St Michael's College sits on the Drumclay side of Enniskillen, a Catholic boys' grammar school founded by the Diocese of Clogher in 1957 and named for the archangel whose feast day, 29 September, the school still marks. By the standards of provincial Ulster education its record is mixed and now openly debated: a celebrated Gaelic football team that lifted the All-Ireland Hogan Cup at Croke Park in 2019, a steady stream of poets and politicians in its alumni list, and a darker chapter, finally confronted in 2025, in which two former priests of the school were exposed as serial child abusers and one was sentenced to seven years for crimes that had been an open secret on these corridors for decades.

Image: Ennis461 | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Michael's College, Enniskillen: From East Bridge Street to Drumclay

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wanfried-Dublin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The diocese took the college over in 1957 and appointed Patrick Mulligan, a Fermanagh native, as its first president. Classes ran from a building on East Bridge Street in the centre of Enniskillen while a new campus was constructed at Drumclay. In September 1963 the buildings wer...

Image: Wanfried-Dublin | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Michael's College, Enniskillen: The MacRory and the Hogan Cups

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ennis461, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gaelic football is the soul of St Michael's. The MacRory Cup, the Ulster Colleges' senior football championship, has been lifted by St Michael's seven times, putting the school in the top six in the competition's history. After early wins in 1973 and 1992, the great spell came at...

Image: Ennis461 | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Michael's College, Enniskillen: An Annual Run for Oisin

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ennis461, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every year the school holds a run around the grounds in memory of Oisin McGrath, a former pupil who died after a playground incident. The money raised supports the Oisin McGrath Foundation, set up in his name. The run draws students past and present and threads through Drumclay f...

Image: Ennis461 | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Michael's College, Enniskillen: What the 2025 Trial Made Public

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ennis461, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 11 June 2025, at Dungannon Crown Court, the former president of St Michael's College, Canon Patrick McEntee, was unanimously convicted on eight counts of historical indecent assault against four children. The offences had occurred between 1978 and 1989. McEntee had joined the ...

Image: Ennis461 | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Michael's College, Enniskillen: The School That Goes On

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Energizer07 (talk), Public domain. Cathal O'Connor, a former pupil of St Michael's and a teacher there for twenty-two years, was confirmed as the new principal in March 2025, taking over from Mark Henry. In April 2025 the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools announced that St Michael's and St Joseph's College, ...

Image: Energizer07 (talk) | Public domain