[citation needed] The school's student body included those from a local council estate called Beech Hill, the offspring of parents disenchanted with denominational/same-sex schools, students on the Malahide/Howth to Bray rail corridor and foreign nationals who paid tuition fees.
[citation needed] Otherwise rugby union was the main school sport for both Intermediate and Leaving Certificate male students during the early 1960s.
[citation needed] A rival school opened next door several years later: Marian College, run by the Catholic Church.
It was originally intended to be co-educational and named Riverside College, but both the name and its co-educational character were changed at the insistence of John Charles McQuaid as he disliked the influence of Sandymount High.
[citation needed] Notable former pupils include Fionnula Flanagan,[4] Charlie Bird,[5] Eamonn Dunphy,[6] Dervla Kirwan[7] and Ronnie Delaney.