De La Salle College is a non-selective boys' secondary Catholic maintained school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a Lasallian educational institution affiliated with the De La Salle Brothers, a Roman Catholic religious teaching order founded by French Priest Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. As of 2018/2019 the school's enrolment was around 926. Original Building As the population in the Andersonstown area in the early 1960s surged, the then Parish Priest, Rev Fr Thomas Cunningham approached the De La Salle Brothers, asking them to establish a Secondary Intermediate School for the local parishes. Only 65% of the Capital cost was funded by the state, leaving £90,000 to be funded by the parishes themselves. The new La Salle Boys’ Secondary School and its sister school, St. Genevieve's, opened their doors to the first pupils in September 1966. La Salle enrolled its first 275 students on the 5th of September 1966. The head of the school was Brother Cornelius. La Salle Secondary School became known as La Salle Boys School. These early years coincided with the breakout of the Troubles and the school was to serve as a refugee centre for those fleeing the violence on the Lower Falls Road. The new school year in September 1969 was delayed by seven weeks as a result and these circumstances were repeated in 1972 during what was called Operation Motorman, when part of the school was occupied by the British Army. In the same year the school gymnasium was destroyed in an explosion. The building was originally designed for 450-500 students but by the early 1980s it was approaching 1,200. Principal, Brother Dominic was forced to introduce the use of mobile classrooms which encroached on the running track and tennis courts reducing the sports facilities available to students. In 1989 the Junior students moved to the vacant Cross and Passion College building on the Glen Road. While this relieved some of the pressures on the Edenmore Drive site it presented new logistical and financial challenges associated with a split site. This supposedly short term arrangement was to last almost two decades. After almost 40 years the old buildings were suffering from severe dilapidation. In 2005 the old senior school building on Edenmore Drive was demolished with the senior school temporarily housed in St. Genevieve's old building, now available as they had moved to their new Trench House site in 2002. In 2009 construction of