Article Updated: 3pm to include the latest statement from the Saint Eunan’s College Board of Management
Members of Saint Eunan’s College student council say they feel the government has chosen to ignore the poor conditions they are forced to learn in.
Students brought their campaign for school extension funding onto Main Street in Letterkenny today, gaining hundreds of signatures from members of the public.
They took the chance to highlight Saint Eunan’s decades-long battle for additional classrooms. Passers-by were told about the overcrowding in the school, with only two sets of toilet facilities for 1,000 students and mould spores growing on the walls of one classroom.
Plans to build a new state-of-the-art extension at the all-boys college were dealt a devastating blow after the school was excluded from the first tranche of a €7.55bn national schools investment programme.
Plans for a new extension at Saint Eunan’s College remain at pre-tender stage
Only one school in Donegal, St Columba’s College, Stranorlar, has been supported to go to tender or construction over the next two years.
“They know who we are, but they’re choosing to ignore us. That’s what it feels like. It’s gone from ignorance to disrespect,” says TY student and Saint Eunan’s Student Council member Hughie Carroll.
Saint Eunan’s College has not had any major renovation works since an extension more than 50 years ago.
The student council now believes no construction will happen during their time at the college, but say their hope is for future students to have basic disability access and, as they put it, “to be educated in a building that’s fit for purpose.”
“The teachers and the staff try as best they can. Our education is great, but the conditions they have to work in, and we have to learn in, are just not suitable,” said Sean Doherty.
Hughie adds: “The reason people come to the school is because the teachers are incredible, and the sports teams are incredible. It’s the facilities that are the main problem.”
Saint Eunan’s Senior Gaelic team will tonight take to the field against Aquinas Grammar School in the MacLarnan Cup in Belfast.
Students say that even this sporting success has been a hard-fought achievement despite limited facilities.
Darragh Curley said: “It’s amazing they achieve so much in such a bad building, with just one pitch to train on and no floodlights.”
The all-weather pitch is closed more often than not, he adds.
Members of the Student Council joined by the Parents’ Association are in the Market Square Letterkenny today.
The Student Council was supported by the Parents’ Association during today’s street campaign.
Ciara Cunnane of the Parents’ Association said: “For a long time, people have had a perception of Saint Eunan’s as this fine, big, old ‘Harry Potter’-style building.
“They keep the building so well. They put their heart and soul into maintaining it for the boys.
“However, those boys do not enter through the grand front door each morning. They go in the side entrance, into a 1970s building that is not fit for purpose, with mushrooms growing at the back of classrooms.
“They do not go in the front door of a ‘Harry Potter’ dream.”
The extension project at Saint Eunan’s has been effectively stalled since the 1990s, and time is now running out on the most recent planning permission granted in 2022. That permission is due to expire in March 2027.
The Minister for Education, Hildegarde Naughton, has yet to confirm whether she will visit Saint Eunan’s College. She says the request to visit the school has been received by her office and is “currently under consideration.”
Donegal Sinn Féin TD Pádraig MacLochlainn has again called on the minister to see first-hand what he described as the “unacceptable condition” of the school’s older buildings.
“My anger and frustration is growing at this wilful indifference,” Deputy Mac Lochlainn said.
The Board of Management of Saint Eunan’s College, has also called for an urgent meeting with the Minister for Education, the Planning and Building Unit, and senior political representatives to “move past generalities and establish a concrete roadmap for our project”.
In a statement today, it said the school’s exclusion from the Department of Education’s 2026 priority list “is not merely a disappointment; it is a fundamental breach of the trust placed in the state by the people of the North West.”
“Our concern is not with the inclusion of other schools on the priority list, but rather the lack of a clear, evidence-based explanation for our own omission.”
“We are currently overseeing a critical infrastructural crisis. The safety of our 1,000 students is a non-negotiable priority, and the current state of our facilities represents a failure of the state to meet its most basic duty of care.
“We are at a point where the physical limitations of our campus are beginning to diverge dangerously from the high standards of safety and modern education we are mandated to provide. Finding a resolution is no longer a matter of preference; it is a matter of basic health and safety requirements.”
See more: Minister for Education needs to ‘urgently’ visit St Eunan’s College
Petition launched for review of Saint Eunan’s College funding snub
‘It’s gone from ignorance to disrespect’ – Saint Eunan’s students urge action was last modified: February 5th, 2026 by Rachel McLaughlin
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