The next event of note was the arrest during a maths class of one of the teachers, Mary MacSwiney, sister of Republican Lord Mayor, Terence MacSwiney, in May 1916. She had been told that she could no longer continue to teach in St. Angela’s after the summer holidays but in the event she was paid in full by the school authorities and did not return to the school fter her release from gaol.
In the 1950s the sides of the roofed space at the bottom of the site, which was used for drill and Irish dancing, were filled in and formed into classrooms. These rooms, now known as Iona, were used initially by the Junior School. Further space for the secondary school was created by the purchase of the adjoining house, Richmond House, to serve as a convent. Two prefabricated buildings were erected on the tennis court of Richmond House and provided four additional classrooms at the northern end of the site. In the 1970s the need for increased space led to the building of the St. Ursula’s wing, an l-shaped block of four pre-fabricated classrooms. In the 1980s 31 St. Patrick’s Hill was bought and after renovation was opened in 1986 as Arus Chriost, the 6 Year house. At the same time the top floor of St. Joseph’s was renovated and a second science laboratory was installed, henceforth known as the New Lab. The summer of 2003 saw the replacement of St. Ursula’s and Iona with new pre-fabricated classrooms. Four years later the Department of Education agreed to the replacement of one of the two pre-fabs at the back of the school. A final addition was the erection of a small meeting room for parents. This room was funded by the Parents’ Association and it was decided to dedicate it to the memory of St. Angela’s very first pupil, Mary Ryan, later the first woman to be appointed Professor of Modern Languages in the British Isles.
