Profiles

Once a Rockbrook man, always a Rockbrook man

The school was founded in 1975. The alumni community spans five decades and extends well beyond Ireland. Rockbrook men go on to careers across every field — and what connects them is not a shared professional path but a shared formation: the habits of mind and character built during six years on this campus.

Among the graduates of the past fifty years:

David Larkin

Senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s music faculty; Cambridge PhD; frequent speaker at the Sydney Opera House on music and opera.

Martin Moriarty

Violist with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta; in 2022 he premiered James MacMillan’s Viola Concerto in the Czech Republic.

Dony MacManus

Sculptor; his works include The Linesman bronze on Dublin’s quays; founder of the Sacred Art School Firenze in Florence, Italy.

Sacha Barber

Chief Exterior Designer for Jeep EMEA; formerly Senior Exterior Designer for Alfa Romeo.

Barry Kennedy

Animation director; won the Annie Award in 2016.

Ruairí Long

Represented Team Ireland at the World Orienteering and Mountain Running Championships, 2017.

Ivor Queally

Chief Executive of QK Group South Africa; director of the Queally Group, whose brands include Dawn Meats and Irish Dog Foods; named International Entrepreneur of the Year at the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, 2024.

Alumni return to the school to speak about their careers, to mentor current students, and to serve on committees and boards. The wider community — at alumni.rockbrook.ie — is active and connected.

Past pupils have said: “At least when I left I knew what was right and wrong, even if I didn’t always do the right thing.” That is not a modest claim. It is, for the school’s founders, the whole point.