St. Patrick's Classical School was founded in 1930 when the Diocese of Meath's seminary, St. Finian's College, which had previously been the main provider of denominational education for boys locally, moved from Navan to the new diocesan capital, Mullingar in Co. Westmeath. The school's patron is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath. The school was previously located in a small architecturally distinctive building on Academy Street in the centre of the town, but in 1970 it moved to a new campus at the outskirts of the town.

As its name indicated, it placed heavy emphasis on the teaching of the classics, Latin and Greek, rather than vocational subjects. Until the granting of free education by the Irish Minister for Education, Brian Lenihan, (his predecessor who proposed free education, Donogh O'Malley died before he could implement the plan) the school operated as a fee-paying school. Its education is now free. Though predominantly Roman Catholic, the school attracts many pupils from other religions and none.

Although the Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath remains the school patron, the school has long been under lay control and has not had a member of the clergy as its principal since 1970.

On 27 November 2009, Uachtáran na hÉireann Mary McAleese visited the school.

Notable alumni

The school has produced many prominent figures in Irish politics, business, the international media and comedy. Among its most prominent ex-pupils were James Tully, the Labour Party Deputy Leader and Irish government minister in the 1970s and early 1980s, Jim Fitzsimons, a longtime Fianna Fáil Member of the European Parliament, Jim Duffy, an author and journalist, Simon Cumbers, a prominent broadcast journalist (killed by al-Qaeda in 2004), David Beggy, a Gaelic football star turned successful Rugby player, Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran, both winners of the famous international Perrier Award for Comedy at the Edinburgh Festival who had award-winning comedy shows on British television, London West-End star Willy Byrne, Karl Fagan, founder of the now infamous flymo-ing (aka Lawnmower Soc) and Irish television presenter Hector Ó hEochagáin.

The successes of Tiernan, Moran, Darcy, Moore, Byrne and McManus were credited to the passion for stage and theatre of one of our former school teachers, Richie Ball, whose success in the 1980s in inspiring teenagers to opt for careers in the arts earned considerable media attention.

The school has itself produced many current stars in Irish sport, especially in Gaelic games, including many past and present Meath Gaelic footballers.