Welcome

At St Mary’s we have a vision of Education in the Catholic tradition which emphasises the integration of faith and reason and an ethos which is person-centred, inclusive and rooted in the Gospel values of respect for life, love, solidarity, truth and justice. Students of diverse identities are welcome at St Mary’s where they are respected and cherished. Our mission emphasises the dignity of the human person as well as the importance of community and social justice.

St Mary’s celebrates its distinctiveness and wishes to communicate it and share it with others. The education we offer our students has a profound sense of the sacred dignity and value of every human person, made as we are in the image and likeness of God. In our increasingly secular and materialistic world St Mary’s serves the common good by the quality of our testimony to this truth.

Through hard work and commitment, we have gained a sterling reputation for pastoral care and for the intellectual, moral, social, cultural and spiritual development of our students. We are a very highly performing institution as judged by the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of: entry level points, retention, examination performance, student satisfaction and graduate employment. Our approach to education is ambitious for the students: it wants each and every one of them to recognise their own gifts and talents, and use them, not merely for their own benefit, but in the service of their neighbours.

At St Mary’s we place great emphasis on a sense of community. We believe that the very nature of human beings is that we are communal and we live and grow in community. It is our experience that many students excel in a learning environment which emphasises a sense of community.

We are a small, specialist and distinctive institution and one that is very focused, high performing and with an international outlook. We enjoy an excellent academic partnership whereby St Mary’s is autonomous but enjoys a collaborative partnership with a top class research intensive university, Queen’s University, Belfast.

I invite you to explore our website and if you require further information please contact myself or another member of staff.

Professor Peter B Finn
Principal