Well, as Kavanagh said, we have lived In important places. The lonely scarp

Of St Columb's College, where I billeted

For six years, overlooked your Bogside.

I gazed into new worlds: the inflamed throat

Of Brandywell, its floodlit dogtrack,

The throttle of the hare. In the first week I was so homesick I couldn't even eat The biscuits left to sweeten my exile.

I threw them over the fence one night

In September 1951

When the lights of houses in the Lecky Road

Were amber in the fog. It was an act

Of stealth.

The Ministry of Fear (for Seamus Deane)

By Seamus Heaney

The list of alumni illustrissimi who attended St Columb's, Derry's oldest and largest Catholic grammar school, is awe-inspiring. A booklet containing contributions by the two Nobel laureates, Seamus Heaney and John Hume, as well as other past and present pupils, was published last Friday to mark the official opening of new buildings at the college. (The recollections on this page are excerpted from the booklet.)

The college president, Father John Walsh says: "While we have two Nobel laureates we don't forget the average past pupil. We have alumni who are contributing in their own domain, maybe in a small way, and we are as proud of them as we are of John Hume and Seamus Heaney. We are very proud of those two people and we bask in the reflected glory, but every St Columb's man is making his own contribution and we salute all of them."

Founded in 1879 at Bishop Street, St Columb's had some 50 students. Run, then as now, by secular diocesan priests, the college, which still caters for boys only, has expanded dramatically.

By the 1960s there were about 1,100 pupils, according to Walsh. In 1973, the college split into two campuses with the relocation of the senior school to the Pennyburn area of the city. In 1997, the junior school at Bishop Street was vacated and the college was once again united on the one site at Buncrana Road. The recently completed refurbishment has faciliated this move.

The Nissen huts recalled by John Hume have been replaced by classrooms, halls, laboratories, workshops, lecture theatres and specialist rooms, "all finished to a very high standard, are comfortable and exceptionally well-equipped. The oratory, situated close to the foyer, is at the very heart of the school, as is fitting in a college proud of its place in the local Catholic community and features newly donated stained glass windows designed by Ann McDuff," according to the college's Official Opening Committee.

The school has a strong sports tradition, particularly in athletics and cross country. Walsh says students are offered a wide range of sport from basketball, to soccer to rugby and cricket, which was recently re-introduced. The college is also "probably the strongest school in Ireland in chess for the past 20 years".

Core languages include French, German, Spanish, Latin and Irish - though Walsh says Latin is dying due to poor uptake. "When you give a menu of four modern languages and one dead one, the dead language seems to be unattractive." At present, there is an A-level and fifth year Latin class and the college will continue to offer it, though it may become extracurricular.

Today, St Columb's has 1,660 students. "It is big but not anonymous," says Walsh. "it is broken down into manageable units." St Columb's is a free school but operates selective entry via the 11-plus exam. Some 87 per cent of last year's final-year class went on to third-level education.

"There is no social exclusivity, with about 25 per cent of boys qualifying for free meals. Boys come here from all sorts of social backgrounds and we're very proud of that."