The King's Hospital
The Hospital and Free School of King Charles II, Oxmantown, also called The King's Hospital (KH; ) is a Church of Ireland co-educational independent day and boarding school situated in Palmerstown, Dublin, Ireland. It is on an 80-acre campus beside the River Liffey, called Brooklawn, named after the country houses situated on the site and in which the headmaster and his family reside. The school is also a member of the HMC Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the BSA. Founded in 1669, it is one of the oldest schools in Ireland and was also  known as the Blue Coat School. Although priority is given to those of the main Protestant tradition, as a Christian school, it is attended by students of other denominations and faiths. The school's colours are navy and gold. The school crest is three burning castles with the date "1669", almost identical to the crest for Dublin city. The current headmaster is Mark Ronan. History. Founding. The school was founded in 1669 as The Hospital and Free School of King Charles II and was located in Queen Street, Dublin. King's Hospital was a continuation of the old Free School  of Dublin. On 5 May 1674, the school opened with 60 pupils, including 3 girls. From 1783 to 1971, the school was located in Blackhall Place, Dublin, currently the headquarters of the Law Society of Ireland. During the early seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was used as the site of elections to the Irish Parliament's Dublin City. When this was changed to the Tholsel for the 1713 general election, it led to the Dublin election riot. Morgan's takeover. The take-over of Morgan's School (1957) contributed to steadily increasing numbers of students, and by 1970, a  need for extra space and facilities led to the move from the city centre to a modern purpose-built school set in its own site on the banks of the River Liffey in Palmerstown, County Dublin. Erwin Schrödinger. A 57-year-old manuscript by renowned Nobel Prize in Physics winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger recently resurfaced at the school. Entitled "Fragment From An Unpublished Dialogue Of Galileo", it was written for the School's 1955 edition of the annual Blue Coat magazine to coincide with Schrödinger leaving Dublin to take up his appointment as Chair of Physics at the University of  Vienna. Schrödinger wrote the manuscript for the school's former English teacher and Editor of the Blue Coat magazine, Ronnie Anderson (now deceased), a friend of Schrödinger when he lived in Dublin. It is now in the possession of Professor Jonathan Coleman in CRANN at Trinity College, Dublin. Structure. The school is co-educational and caters for some 720 pupils, roughly 440 day pupils and 280 boarders in 2018/19. The King's Hospital has students from all over Ireland and from overseas. Students from Germany and Spain are the most common international students. The School is divided into five boarding  houses: Bluecoat, Mercer, Grace, Morgan and Ormonde and five day pupil houses. Each boarding house has its own resident housemaster or housemistress. Sport. The school has a gymnasium and sports hall with an advanced fitness center. The school also has access to a swimming pool, grass hockey pitch, rugby pitches and tennis courts. Various sports (with a focus on rugby) are played on campus and training is provided by staff. The school has teams for rugby, hockey, cricket, athletics, cross-country, badminton, soccer, basketball and swimming.