Royal School Armagh

The Royal School Armagh is a co-educational voluntary grammar school on College Hill in Armagh, with over 700 pupils and its own preparatory department below the secondary school. It also has some boarding, with room for about ninety pupils, which makes it one of the larger boarding schools in Northern Ireland. Day places at Year 8 go through the SEAG assessment. Boarding places are handled separately and do not require the test, which is worth knowing if you are considering boarding.

It was founded in 1608 by royal charter of James I, one of the free schools set up under the Plantation of Ulster, and moved to College Hill in 1765. The Old Building was finished in 1774 at a cost of just over five thousand pounds, and it still holds the junior boarding dormitories and the library. Sixth form boarders live somewhere different again, in single study bedrooms in converted town houses on the Mall. The school became co-educational in 1986, when it amalgamated with Armagh Girls' High School, so its long history as a boys' school is only part of the story.

The four houses are named after former archbishops: Armstrong, Beresford, d'Arcy and Rokeby. They compete at the expected sports and also at debating, a quiz and a talent show, with whole-school assemblies on Tuesdays and Thursdays and house assemblies once a month. The day runs from ten to nine to a quarter past three, over ten periods of thirty-five minutes, with lunch falling at different points depending on your timetable. New Year 8 pupils come in for two induction days in late August, before term starts.