Category Archives: Disused School Houses

Slievereagh/St.Michael’s National School, Slievereagh townland, Ballyvourney, Co. Cork

October 23, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 7 Comments

Slievereagh/St.Michael’s National School, Slievereagh townland, Ballyvourney, Co. Cork

(dated: Late 19th Century)

ING: 118123, 078939

The ruins of Slieveragh/St. Michael’s National School can be spotted when driving from Killarney to Cork on the N22 – situated about 2.5 km before the village of Ballyvourney in Co. Cork. The school house is located just north of a re-aligned stretch of roadway, away from the modern carriageway. From the roadside, this detached, four-bay, two-roomed school building stands in open rough grazing, grey and weather-beaten, with boarded up windows and a collapsing roof.

Nature is creeping in through every available opening, with nesting birds now being the main occupants of the collapsing structure. Most notable in the hallway, are the heavily corroded numbered cast-iron coat hooks and fine tiled floor. From the hall, two small classrooms can be accessed with matching fireplaces in each. Inside the few remaining school desks have collapsed through the remnants of the suspended timber floor.

If you or someone you know attended this national school, please do get in touch and share any stories, anecdotes, photographs, or any other memories you may have.

Co. Galway, Disused School Houses

Scoil Cill Criosta, Ballingarry townland, Co. Galway

July 29, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 4 Comments

Scoil Cill Criosta, Ballingarry townland, Co. Galway

(dated: 1931)

NGR: 156858, 213606

The Slieve Aughty Hills straddle the border between south-east Co. Galway and north-east Co. Clare. Desolate and empty of human settlement, this striking landscape comprises low rolling hills, damp peat-lands, forests and mountain streams, and offers a great stillness and a sense of solitude to visitors. The area features one of the most extensive forestry units in Ireland with 33,150 Ha of mountain land under management. A maze of forestry roads allow access to the interior of the hilly terrain where wild horses and deer roam the blanket peat, and the extensive forestry plantations are punctuated by wind turbines. Few people still live in this area, though the ruins of former farmsteads can be found among Coilte coniferous plantations. The village of Kilchreest is situated on the north-eastern edge of the hills, with the town of Loughrea lying to the north-east. The disused school house Scoil Cill Criosta (Kilchreest National School) lies to the south of Kilchreest village at Three Kings Gap on lands that slowly rise toward the emptying hills.

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Co. Roscommon, Disused School Houses

Drumatemple National School, Drumatemple townland, Co. Roscommon

June 9, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 2 Comments

Drumatemple National School, Drumatemple townland, Co. Roscommon

(dated: 1935)

ING: 170915, 271742

Situated about a kilometre outside the Co. Galway village of Ballymoe but just across the county border, Drumatemple National School lies near the roadside of the N60 in Co. Roscommon. A plaque next to the door dates this two-room, detached, single-storey school house to 1935 though the Second Edition OS sheet shows that there was a school building at this location at the turn of the 20th century.

The school house is boarded-up and today used for storage. However, it is in a relatively good state of preservation with much of the interior still surviving and much of the original furniture still present. The record of ‘pupils on roll in the ordinary national schools of Co. Roscommon in the year 1890’ shows that this was a busy school house – with a size-able attendance of 172 – most likely servicing the nearby village of Ballymoe.

With the windows heavily boarded up and the rooms in total darkness, only a handful of long-exposure photographs managed to reveal the interior of the building. Painted in bright blue and yellow, it is clear that this building did not change much since it’s construction in 1935.

If you or someone you know attended this national school, please do get in touch and share any stories, anecdotes, photographs, or any other memories you may have.

Co. Kerry, Disused School Houses

Mastergeehy National School, Mastergeehy townland, Co. Kerry

May 27, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 4 Comments

Mastergeehy National School, Mastergeehy townland, Co. Kerry

(dated: 1870-1890)

NGR: 152038, 221360

Mastergeehy NS. Co. Kerry 1870-1890 Classroom Interior — Mastergeehy NS Co. Kerry

Situated 15 km to the southwest of Ballaghasheen Pass on the Iveragh Peninsula, modern-day Mastergeehy could just barely be considered a village in terms of its size. The ‘Kerry Way’ walking route passes through this tiny hamlet on the valley floor, bringing the occasional adventurous tourist. Steep, forested slopes to the northwest and southeast act to funnel the prevailing Atlantic winds through the area, and have given the townland its name (‘master of the wind’). With the exception of the local Post Office/shop (located in the front room of one of the handful of bungalows in the village), there are little or no services or distractions in this beautiful, sparsely populated and isolated location. Like at so many other of the disused schools that dot the rural Irish landscape, it is difficult to picture a time when there were enough children in this locality to support a school house.

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Co. Mayo, Disused School Houses

Ballycastle National School, Carrowkibbock Upper townland, Co. Mayo

May 24, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 3 Comments

Ballycastle National School, Carrowkibbock Upper townland, Co. Mayo

(dated: 1892)

ING: 110455, 337374

West of Killala Bay on the north coast of Co. Mayo is the rural village of Ballycastle. On an overcast day, the beauty of this place can be well hidden, and the village can appear unremarkable – despite it’s pleasant setting by the Ballinglen River which flows into the Atlantic nearby at Bunatrahir Bay.

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Co. Sligo, Disused School Houses

Lackagh National School, Knocknagroagh townland, Co. Sligo

May 20, 2015 Enda O Flaherty Leave a comment

Lackagh National School, Knocknagroagh townland, Co. Sligo

(dated: late 19th Century)

ING:170036, 321816

When traveling along the N4 from Sligo Town toward Dublin, six kilometres from the village of Collooney in Co. Sligo lies a less than noteworthy junction named Lackagh. Here by the roadside you will find a collection of disused buildings including the shell of a former pub/dance-hall, and a run-down old petrol station with the dial on the pump firmly rusted at 50p per litre for petrol. If you look a little closer, hidden behind the roadside undergrowth on the western side of the road is the dilapidated remains of a school house marked on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey Sheet for the area.

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Co. Limerick, Disused School Houses

Eyon National School, Eyon townland, Co. Limerick

March 5, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 3 Comments

Eyon National School, Eyon townland, Co. Limerick

(dated 1800 – 1840)

NGR:172416, 150696

Eyon National School is situated in the rolling rural landscape of northeast Limerick, just east of Brittas Bridge on the southern side of the R505. The surrounding countryside is sparsely populated today. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage dates this school house to between 1800 and 1840. However, it does not appear on the First Edition OS sheet for the area. The building is indicated on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey sheet dating to the early years of the 20th century:

Although now in a poor state of preservation, this former school house retains its original form. Its modest design is enlivened by the use of varied material in its construction with the limestone walls contrasting with the brickwork of the window surrounds and chimneystacks. The use of these materials adds textural variation to the appearance of the building. As was common in the early nineteenth-century school buildings, there was separate entrance for girls and boys and these still remain visible today.

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Disused School Houses, Miscellany

Education is the movement from darkness into light – Allan Bloom

March 4, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 1 Comment

Often the easiest way to identify whether a derelict building was once a school house or not is by the presence of windows that are not characteristic of a domestic structure. Light, and allowing light into the building were practical necessities before the arrival of artificial luminescence from the electric bulb. For reading and writing, high windows allowed the optimum amount of light into the room throughout the day. Even today, it is recognised that maximising the amount of natural light in a school building is beneficial to the learning environment.

The form, style and placement of windows vary greatly from school to school, though many early school houses reflect an ecclesiastical genesis, with high pointed windows similar to those found in a church sometimes being present. Some can be ornate and intricate, with features such as switch-line tracery. An example of this from Tubrid National School, Co. Tipperary is shown below:

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Disused School Houses, Miscellany

Keeping the classroom warm during the winter months

March 2, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 4 Comments

Even today with the wonders of central-heating, attending school through the cold winter months is a testing experience for many school children. Think back to what it must have been like before insulation, double glazing, and warm radiators were common place in the classroom. The fireplace is an almost ubiquitous feature in every school house built in Ireland through the 19^thand into the first half of the 20^th century. During this period, it was common for each classroom to have its own open fireplace to keep the classroom warm, though stoves could also be found in some schools.

As part of their contribution to the upkeep of the school, the parents of the school children were required to supply fuel through the winter months (in rural schools, this was typically peat turf) to heat the classroom as needed. Generally, the location of the fireplace at the head of the classroom meant that the teacher enjoyed the benefit of the warmth much more than the children. However, as a small comfort the fireplace was sometimes used to heat glass bottles of milk which each child often brought to school.

Very often, supplying turf for the school fire amounted to the school children carrying a sod or two of turf to school each morning in winter. In some cases, each family who had children attending the school had to provide one cart-load of turf each year. When this was used, each pupil had to bring further fuel each day until the weather improved. Turf was often stored in the porches where the children’s coats hung. Continue reading Keeping the classroom warm during the winter months →

Co. Galway, Disused School Houses

Réidh Reamhar (Reyrawer) National School, Reyrawer townland, Co. Galway

March 1, 2015 Enda O Flaherty 10 Comments

Réidh Reamhar (Reyrawer) National School, Reyrawer townland, Co. Galway

(dated 1883)

NGR: 153849, 201664

Reyrawer (meaning thick field or mountain plain) National School is situated in the uplands of the Slieve Aughty Mountains in the parish of Peterswell (Kilthomas), south-east Co. Galway. Today, when standing in the doorway of the school house, surrounded by the coniferous forestry plantations, the elevated aspect affords excellent views of the karstic landscape of the Gort lowlands to the south. Despite the fact that the uplands are today abandoned, there are a maze of small roads and field boundaries through the forest lands and across the fresh hillside. The 1911 census shows 14 families living in the townland of Reyrawer at that time. Nonetheless there is now a great sense of emptiness in this landscape. With many of the vernacular houses of those who once lived here being swallowed up by the forestry plantation, the school building feels like the last reminder of the communities that once populated this area.

This is a detached one-room school house with an attached entrance hall to the south. Inside, the suspended timber floor has begun to collapse, though the pitched roof remains in good condition, with the interior remaining protected from the elements. To the rear of the main building is the former toilet block while to the west lies the cast-in situ concrete schoolyard shelter.

Among the past pupils of the school is Patrick Glynn, member of Kilbecanty Coy. Irish Volunteers, Co. Galway, 1917-21. Glynn was born on the 17th February, 1891 at Lisbrien in the parish of Kilbecanty, Co. Galway and attended the Reyrawer National School until he was about fifteen years of age. Continue reading Réidh Reamhar (Reyrawer) National School, Reyrawer townland, Co. Galway →