Belvedere College also forms the setting for part of James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Belvedere owes its origins to the efforts of John Austin who opened primary and secondary schools at Saul's Court off Fishamble Street in 1750.

They founded St Francis Xavier's College in the disused Poor Clare convent on Hardwicke Street with nine students in 1832,[1] three years after Catholic emancipation.

[citation needed] Garret A. FitzGerald, an Old Belvederian and senior faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, has instituted an annual five-week scholarship for two students who excel in Transition Year science.

[citation needed] The school also has a professional standard 590-seat theatre with a motorised stage and retractable seating, the O'Reilly Theatre, which is used to stage school plays and musicals but has also been used by RTÉ, TV3 and an assortment of dramatic organisations and hosted live audience TV shows such as The Panel and Tonight with Vincent Browne.

In 2004, Belvedere opened the Dargan Moloney Science and Technology Block, which has state-of-the-art laboratories, lecture theatres and IT hubs.

Belvedere's St Vincent de Paul Society is one of the largest among secondary schools in Ireland, organising activities such as old-folks events and a weekly soup run in inner city Dublin.

[citation needed] Beginning in 1981, some students have undertaken a charity walk from Dublin to Galway each summer to raise funds for Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind, St Francis Hospice, and The Temple Street Children's University Hospital, located very near the school.

[10] An annual charitable fundraising event held by the college is the "Belvedere Sleep-Out", which takes place from 22 to 24 December each year.

[13] However, in 2022, the Belvedere College Sleepout became a huge national story and was promoted across multiple platforms and set a new All Time record of over €304,000.

In October 2013 Belvedere held the all-Ireland schools senior track and field trophy, having won the title in the previous seven years.

Other productions of note include Bugsy Malone, The Adventures of Roderick Random, David Copperfield, Aladdin, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Wind in the Willows, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Treasure Island, The Lord of the Rings, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Addams Family, West Side Storyand The Pirates of Penzance.

Students often write "AMDG" for Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, "For the greater glory of God", the motto of the Society of Jesus, on the top left of pages of their copybooks.

They formerly also wrote "LDSetBVM" or Laus Deo Semper et Beatae Virgini Mariae ("Praise to God forever and to the Blessed Virgin Mary") on the bottom right of the same page.

Years are named after the progression in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum: Elements, Rudiments, Grammar, Syntax, Poetry, and Rhetoric.

[22][23] In 1884, James Aloysius Cullen was appointed spiritual father at Belvedere, a position he retained for twenty years while also engaged in other ministry.