The schools in Cork, Dublin, Donegal, and Sligo all asked for and were granted co-ed status in time for their reopening in September following the summer vacation, according to data from the Department of Education.

They are following an increasingly popular trend by adopting mixed status. The two Catholic secondary schools in Longford Town were the most recent to declare earlier this month that they will combine to form a single coeducational institution starting in September.

Presentation Secondary School and St. Patrick's College in Cork City, St. Mary's Secondary School and St. David's College in the Dublin suburbs of Baldoyle and Artane, and Summerhill College in Sligo are among the schools that switched in 2024.

At the elementary level, two schools in Drumcondra, Dublin; one in Chapelizod, a suburb of the city; and two in Carndonagh, County Donegal, also switched to coeducation.

Nearly 56,000 boys and 68,500 girls attend single-sex schools, but the majority of teenagers—just over 292,000—are now receiving their education in coeducational settings, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education.

As parents prefer mixed schools to single-sex ones for their children, declining attendance in some traditional Catholic single-sex schools has prompted the shift to coeducation.

Since the transition, enrolment at some of those schools has increased significantly. Schools and the Department of Education claim that parental desire is driving the coed trend.

It is said that parents prefer that their children attend the same elementary or secondary school. Additionally, they want their children to have access to a wide variety of disciplines. For instance, some schools for guys may not provide home economics, while other schools for girls may not offer courses like construction studies or woodworking.

The ability to drop their kids off at one school rather than two is also convenient for parents, especially those with elementary school-aged children. Mixed education also has social benefits, according to studies.

According to a new study, kids who go to coeducational schools make more friends. Teachers believed that single-sex education reinforced gender boundaries, according to a report from the UCD School of Education.