One of the few schools with 2 former Nobel laureates

Lumen Cristi College, located on Bishop Street, Derry City was formerly known as St Columb’s College. It was built in 1879 and is one of the few schools in the world that can claim two Nobel laureates amongst its alumni, namely; Seamus Heaney (Nobel Literature Prize-1995) and John Hume (Nobel Peace Prize-1998). It was named after Saint Columba, the Irish missionary who founded a monastery in Derry. The school is colloquially known as ‘The College’ and has a student population of over 1,500 (making it one of the largest Catholic boys schools in Europe). The library section is probably the most notable architectural aspect of the college and occupies the first and second floors of a building erected in 1898. The library functioned more as a museum and housed many rare antiquarian books (some of which date back to 1650) and a range of items of anthropological and cultural interest relating to the diocese. St Columb’s College has since moved to a different campus on The Buncrana Road.