Paul McBride

St Malachy’s College

www.stmalachyscollege.com

Subject or Primary School Year: Principal

Place of Birth: Belfast

Where you studied: St Malachy's College, Queen's University Belfast, St Mary's University College Belfast

What was your first job?  Teacher and musician

What did your first job teach you? To be reliable, loyal and always strive to find and do my best.

Family/Status: Married for almost 36 years to Deirdre. Three children – Niall (34), Fergus (32) and Niamh (30). One grandchild – Luan.

Best advice you would give to someone thinking of a teaching career: Teaching is a way of life and human beings are in ways the products of our work. Therefore, it is our duty to instil in our young people a real passion for learning, helping them to realise their true potential and while doing so, playing our unique role in forming good people.

Paul has been associated with education and music making in and around Belfast and throughout Ireland for all his adult life. He studied at St Malachy’s College and then Queen’s University, gaining his BMus and MA in Twentieth Century Music before entering the teaching profession. During this period, he was Leader of the QUB Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, deputised with the Ulster Orchestra, and was employed as a session musician for a number of UTV and BBC NI programmes. 

Paul’s association with St Malachy’s College was renewed in 1995 when he was appointed Head of Music. In 2000, having completed another master’s degree in Educational Management and while studying for the PQH, Paul was appointed Vice Principal of Assumption Grammar School. He became Principal in April 2008. In 2014, Paul's career came full circle when he returned to St Malachy's College as Principal. Whilst leading the College, Paul has overseen transformational change in terms of the College estate, academic output, staff development and a large increase in pupil population. He is not only passionate about the quality of education provided for the 1210 St Malachy’s boys but also for all children in North Belfast. Paul, in recent years, and while society was reawakening from the pandemic, decided to grasp the opportunity provided by the digital world, using it as a major vehicle for improving the quality of education within the North Belfast Area Learning Community. 

Paul has worked for the Belfast School of Music on a part-time basis for 40 years and was appointed conductor of the City of Belfast Youth Orchestra (CBYO) in 2005. In his first season as conductor Paul conducted the Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary concert with former member Sir James Galway. He has returned to the Royal Albert Hall a further seven times conducting the CBYO to great acclaim on the last night of the Schools Proms. Further afield, Paul has conducted the orchestra on concert tours of Spain, Slovenia, France and Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and the USA.