One of the State's most exclusive boarding schools for girls is to close because the congregation which owns it has insufficient nuns to keep it open.
Our Lady's secondary school, Clermont, in Rathnew, Co Wicklow, is scheduled to close by June 2004, although final arrangements are subject to negotiation with parents.
The owners, the small Christian Education congregation, has not had a single entrant since 1973. In a statement yesterday it said: "There is no religious personnel for the management or trusteeship of this boarding school into the future."
The order came to Ireland following an invitation from the former Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Charles McQuaid, in 1956. He wanted the order to provide places for children of Catholic parents who had been sending their daughters to boarding schools in Britain.
The school charges between £4,000 and £5,000 a year and has traditionally been popular with affluent Catholic parents. Although it has only 162 boarders, the school is popular throughout the Leinster region.
Many prominent public figures have sent their daughters there, including a former Fine Gael taoiseach, Mr Liam Cosgrave.
The school will no longer accept any pupils and all those currently enrolled will be offered - as a minimum - an education up to Junior Cert level. If parents want the school to teach anyone beyond that, it will be considered, said a spokeswoman.
The order, which has about 20 members, has not decided what to do with the site, said a spokeswoman. If it were to sell the extensive grounds it could make several millions. It also runs Our Lady's secondary school, in Templeogue, Co Dublin, but there are no plans to close this.
The announcement follows other leading boarding school closures, such as the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, two years ago. The Dominican College, in Newbridge, Co Kildare, is phasing out boarders and Blackrock College in Dublin also plans to do so.
According to figures from the Department of Education and Science for the year 1997/98, 29 schools catered for boarders in the State, with more than half of them under Protestant management. When the Department next updates its figures, the numbers will have dropped significantly.