page_title: Falls Road, Belfast
section_title: Schools
hierarchical_section_title: Falls Road, Belfast / Middle Falls / Schools
caption_attribution_description: English: Main entrance to the St. Mary's University College at Falls Road in Belfast.
context_page_description: Falls Road is the main road through west Belfast, Northern Ireland, running from Divis Street in Belfast city centre to Andersonstown in the suburbs. The name has been synonymous for at least a century and a half with the Catholic community in the city. The road is usually referred to as the Falls Road, rather than as Falls Road. It is known as the Faas Raa in Ulster-Scots.
context_section_description: There are also a number of educational institutions in the immediate area.  At the senior level, there is St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls. Beside it was located St. Catherine's Primary School which was also run by the Dominican nuns but closed in 2005. At the rear was located St Rose's High School in the Beechmount district which in 2019 was amalgamated with the Christian Brothers School, Glen Road and Corpus Christi College to form All Saints College / Coláiste na Naomh Uile.
  There were several boys secondary schools in the area which have gone through a process of merging over the past forty years. St. Thomas’s Boys Secondary School on the Whiterock Road opened in 1957. St. Peter’s Boys Secondary School on Brittons Parade opened in the 1960s.  In 1988, both of these schools amalgamated with Gort na Móna Secondary School to become Corpus Christi College which in turn merged (see above). St. Thomas's had a strong literary heritage. For a period, its headteacher was the writer Michael McLaverty. In addition, Seamus Heaney taught here for a while in the 1960s. He references the area in one of his poems:
  Is there life before death? That's chalked up
  In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
  Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,
  We hug our little destiny again.
  Brendan Hamill, another writer, who attended the school in the 1960s recalled later: While on teaching practice, Seamus Heaney came to St Thomas’ about October that year (1962). I remember him, his voice grave and resonant, his big, brown shoes, reading from Carrickfergus by Louis MacNeice. He was an enormously decent man with extraordinary antennae. Joe Graham, the writer and historian, was also a student at the school when McLaverty was the headteacher. For several years, after the school closed, this building was used by Belfast Metropolitan College for further education courses. After the new Springvale campus of the college was opened the building was demolished. Coláiste Feirste is an Irish language school situated in the Beechmount district.
  .
  St. Paul's Primary School is also located in the Beechmount area. There are two Irish language primary schools. These are Gaelscoil na bhFal and Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh.
  At the higher education level, there is St Mary's University College which is part of Queen's University Belfast. This was established in 1909 as St Mary's Training College to train women as teachers. It amalgamated with St Joseph's Training College (for male trainee teachers) in 1985. Besides teacher training it now offers a range of degree courses. The college has a substantial programme of community engagement playing host to many local events including many organised by Féile an Phobail.
caption: St Mary's University College
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "COOLPIX S3300", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "COOLPIX S3300V1.0", "Image DateTime": "2016:08:12 16:18:26", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "234", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "58240", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3515", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:08:12 16:18:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:08:12 16:18:26", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Flash", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "39/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4608", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "58116", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "44", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Portrait", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}