One of the State's oldest and most prestigious schools, Blackrock College, is to reverse its decision of three years ago to close its 140-year-old boarding school.
After consulting parents and past pupils, the school has decided there is sufficient demand for a Catholic boys' boarding school in south Dublin.
In November 1999 the school said its boarding facilities had to close because there were no longer enough Holy Ghost Fathers to "manage and supervise boarders", even with the generosity of lay people.
Since the announcement, the past pupils' union has argued strongly that the boarding element be retained.
The college, after consulting the union and other interests, now believes the boarding school bears too much of the "fundamental characteristic" of Blackrock to be closed.
Blackrock will now be one of the few Catholic boys' boarding schools left in the Dublin archdiocese.
The number of boarding schools in the Republic has been in sharp decline in recent years, mainly due to falling interest and rising costs.
The Blackrock decision indicates that this situation may not be universal. The school educates the sons of several ambassadors and business people who travel abroad regularly. It believes these people will want to send their children to the boarding school in the decades ahead.
The school warned, back in 1999, that the costs of boarding were rising, particularly due to the upkeep of buildings and the need to hire extra lay people and teachers.
The school is going to move the boarders into the castle area of the college, which it is upgrading at a cost of €500,000.