The nuns who run the Mount Anville schools in south Dublin have become the latest religious order to hand over control to the laity.
The Society of the Sacred Heart, which has run Mount Anville since 1853, has blamed the decision on a decline in vocations.
Where previously the schools, which took boarders until 1981, would have been run exclusively by the order, now only one nun remains as a part time member of staff.
A lay-dominated Mount Anville Sacred Heart Education Trust is likely to be responsible from the start of the next academic year for the secondary, junior and Montessori schools, which between them have about 1,000 pupils on the Goatstown site.
In a letter to past pupils, the provincial of the society, Sr Maria Mullen, said they had been preparing for seven years to hand over trusteeship. "In Ireland today every religious congregation is faced with the same challenge.
Having received stewardship of our schools, how are we going to pass on with integrity, to the future generations, the responsibility for Catholic education in this country?
"We have been seeking ways in which the schools can continue to provide the excellent education which they transmit, where the parents would retain confidence in the schools and where the staffs would continue to have job security".
The Mount Anville secondary school, where fees are €4,350 a year, is one of the best known girls secondary schools in the State and regularly features near the top of unofficial league tables for entry to university. It has an excellent academic reputation reflected in the number of high-achieving past pupils who include Catherine Day, the most senior civil servant in the European Commission, and the current president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr Christine O'Malley.
Past pupils also include Mary Robinson and Gemma Hussey. A Mount Anville source said there would be very little change in the day-to-day running of the school as it already had a lay principal and vice-principal.
The decline in vocations has led to a huge change in the running
of schools in the last two decades.
Many orders have had to cede control to lay bodies because
they do not have the numbers to maintain the commitmen any
more.
"It is the end of an era," said former Mount Anville principal Mary McGlynn who is now director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals.
"It has spanned three centuries. "It is mind-boggling when you think about all the schools that have started in the interim."It has a very long prestigious history," Ms McGlynn added.
"The lack of numbers of priests and religious naturally has to bring about change if the future is to be guaranteed.
"Decisions have to be made if the religious are no longer there
as they are still the owners of the school.
"Any of the new boards are limited in what they can do with
regard to property and the religious nature of the schools
involved.
"All of that is protected under the new trust boards," she said.
