International and private schools in Ireland — what they cost and how you get in.

If your children need an IB, French, German or American curriculum, your options are in Dublin and there are seven of them. Four are clustered in the southern suburbs — Leopardstown, Foxrock, Booterstown, Clonskeagh — which is the single biggest reason international families end up living on that side of the city.

Outside Dublin, plan on the Irish national curriculum. It is a good system and most international children settle into it without difficulty, but it is a different decision and worth taking deliberately rather than by default.

Ireland has an unusual arrangement: most fee-paying schools are day schools whose teacher salaries are partly funded by the State, with fees covering facilities, smaller classes and extras. The practical effect is that annual day fees at long-established Irish fee-paying schools sit far below what a family arriving from the US, the UK or the Gulf is braced for.

These schools teach the Irish curriculum to Leaving Certificate, are heavily oversubscribed, and give weight to siblings and past pupils in their published admissions policies. Boarding is available at a minority of them and costs substantially more. Because individual schools set and publish their own fees each year, check the specific school's website rather than any aggregated figure.

The free option is the State system, which is genuinely good and which the large majority of Irish children attend. Admission is governed by each school's published policy, and in fast-growing suburbs catchment pressure is real — the school near the house you like may not have a place.