House System

Our new House System was introduced in January 2023. 

Abercorn

Sacha Abercorn is descended, through her maternal line, from the Romanovs and from Natalya, youngest daughter of Alexander Pushkin. Russian royalty.  She married James Hamilton, who later became the Duke of Abercorn in 1966.

During the mid-1970s, the Duchess trained as a professional counsellor.

Living through the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland made the Duchess increasingly aware of the trauma sustained by children in the province. This led to the establishment of the Pushkin Prizes in 1987. •After the Omagh bomb in 1998, the Duchess became a trustee of the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation. In 2003, the Duchess received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster for her work with young people during the troubles. She died in 2018. 

Alexander

Cecil Frances Alexander was born in Strabane, in Milltown house 1818-1895.

She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf.

Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandments, and prayer, writing in simple language for children. Her more than four hundred hymn texts were published in Verses.

Maunder

Northern Irish astronomer and mathematician Annie Scott Dill Maunder (née Russell) was born in Strabane in April 14th, 1868.

In a time when women were not allowed to vote, getting secondary education and then completing a degree in Mathematics was a real achievement.

In her career she pioneered scientific discoveries and ground breaking achievements as an astronomer. She worked as a teacher, the as a ‘lady computer’ at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

She now has a crater on our Moon named after her, the ‘Maunder Crater’, but probably more significant than that was her lifelong work and her discovery of what became known as the ‘Maunder Minimum’, which related to the very low level of solar activity that was detected by her during the late 1700s and that coincided with what was identified as a mini Ice Age on earth here.

Wilson

Woodrow Wilson was born December 28, 1856-1924. Like many Americans, Woodrow's ancestry can be traced back to Strabane. His parental grandparents came from County Tyrone.

He was the 28th President of the United States (1913–21), an American scholar and statesman.

Best remembered for his legislative accomplishments and his high-minded idealism.

Wilson led his country into World War I and became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations, for which he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace.

During his second term the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed.