Rev. Ezekiel Festus O’Reilly, a Sierra Leonean Anglican Priest, established the O’Reilly Educational Institute (as it was first known) in August 1925. The school’s first home can still be seen in the area known as Korle Wokon, north of Ussher Town.
As the number of pupils increased, Rev. O’Reilly sought to find a new location for the school. Fortunately, he had become acquainted with Francis Dove, the elder brother of his first sponsor, Silas Dove. Through this relationship, Rev. O’Reilly was given a large plot of land near his residence. And from the money he got through a fundraising exercise, he was able to start building on the land. The construction of the school ended up as a self-help and private initiative; once a week, a contingent of pupils and teachers, as well as Rev. O’Reilly himself, would march over to the new site and turn themselves into unpaid labourers. By the end of the year, this volunteer force had put up the unpretentious but solidly built classrooms.
Rev. O’Reilly died in harness, on the morning of January 5, 1944, without making any provision for a successor. The school was thus taken over by his nephew, Mr. E. L. L. Wright.
Meeting on March 3, 1959, the Headmaster and Governors decided that the school’s name should be changed. So, on October 20, 1959, the name was changed to O’Reilly Secondary School.
By 1961, the Tudu site could not accommodate a much larger number with comfort, so the Board Chairman decided that the school would move into the buildings which the Accra Academy in Jamestown had vacated. This move eventually happened in October 1961. Again, the population of the school was increasing, and facilities needed to be extended. The school, therefore, had to leave Jamestown into a rented premises at Kokomlemle.
Then again, around the mid-1980s, the landlord of the Kokomlemle premises ejected the school. This unfortunate action caused the school a massive loss of documents and properties. But by the grace of God, the school was able to settle in a 3-storey building structure just behind the Holy Spirit Cathedral at Adabraka.
In August 2010, the Ghana Education Service (GES) directed the school to stop accepting new entrants and prepare for closure because the owners of the building housing the school had decided that since the Service could not afford to purchase the building, they would no longer lease it to them.
Mrs Mary Adu-Gyamfi, the then Headmistress of the school, however, fought so hard to stop the school from closure. Finally, the school moved to its new and current location at Teshie Okpoi-Gonno in December 2010 after the Service acquired land for them there.
Please download the full version here.