Memories of a long forgotten schoolhouse

When Carrowmore National School closed its doors in 1973, it was reputed to be the oldest school in continuous operation in Ireland. I was attending the school at the time and its closure was like leaving behind a piece of history.

The school still stands today, a testament to its builders. The building is also testament to the thousands of children who passed through its doors and played in its yard over a period of almost 140 years. The old school remains in the possession of the local community, nestled picturesquely at the foot of Knocknashee, close to the river Moy and the Ox Mountains. The story of Carrowmore school is the story of old rural schools everywhere.

A pre-Famine school

Ireland in the early nineteenth century contained various types of schools such as parish, diocesan, and royal schools which had been facilitated by Britain as agencies of colonial conquest to spread the use of the English language and the Protestant faith. However, there was no co-ordinated scheme in place and the influence of these schools failed to reach enough people to have the desired effect. 

Since the late seventeenth century, Catholics had suffered from the harsh Penal Laws which prohibited them from setting up Catholic schools. Despite this, Catholics had succeeded in setting up numerous unofficial schools, known as Hedge Schools, and these were quite widespread by the early 1800s.

It seems that the local parish around Carrowmore had quite a number of both official and unofficial schools at the time. As well as church and society schools, there was up to eight hedge schools in operation locally. As a result, Carrowmore National School was one of the first schools to be built when the National Education Authority was established in 1831.

It seems when the school was finally built, a further appeal was required to have it furnished. This aid application, made to the Commissioners of National Education, contained the following information about the school in those early days. It gives an interesting outline of local circumstances.

It was located on two acres received from Charles O'Hara (the local landlord). Expenses to date were £71 and the dimensions were 48' x 15’ x 9’. The school was constructed with limestone and had a slated roof. One-third of the money needed had been raised through local subscriptions. The expected number was 130 males and 80 females. The population in the locality was 4,000 and circumstances were described as very poor.

When the school eventually opened on November 3, 1834, it consisted of just one room with five desks and eleven forms which could accommodate 54 pupils. Saturday was set aside for religious duties and the attendance hours were 10am to 4pm, five days a week. In 1861, a hen house was erected in the school grounds and in addition there was a cowshed on the site. A basic teacher’s residence was also located on the school grounds – all benefits in kind for the master.

Early 1920s

My father attended the school from 1920 to 1925. In later life, he described his time there in a piece he contributed to a parish history collection. The piece reflects a well-attended and vibrant school, a school that had created a considerable academic reputation, and all of this in very difficult economic and political times.

Everyone wore boots or clogs in the winter and went in bare feet in summer. We were glad when May came and we could go without footwear because we could run a lot faster. For lunch, we carried a few cuts of bread in our pockets and lots of children had no lunch.

We learned a lot of things by heart, poems, catechism and tables. You had to learn a poem for the Inspector, in case he asked you. We learned long pieces from ‘The Deserted Village’. The girls did sewing and had to learn all the stitches. I remember once a girl near me was trying to do a buttonhole. She told me that she’d do my sums for me if I did the buttonhole for her — and I did.

The Master and his wife taught in the two main classrooms. She taught the infant classes and was a very kind woman. Miss Flood and Mr Hunt taught in the two outside sheds. The sheds were bright and warm. They had board floors, the walls were lined with asbestos and they had a row of windows facing south. There was a stove in each shed, in the main building we had open fires. The children lit the fires every morning and every house supplied a cart of turf every year. It was always hard to get dry turf because no one had a turf shed.

Master McGowan was my favourite teacher. He taught the senior classes, 5th, 6th and 7th and he had a very good way of teaching. He used to use the rod now and again but not much. Every weekend, at that time, we’d see young people getting on the train at Carrowmore, going to America. About a month or so before they’d go, the young men would come to Master McGowan to learn to write a letter. I can remember seeing big lads sitting in the seats and the Master teaching them during playtime.

The 1960s

Jack Murtagh taught as principal in the school through the 1960s. This teacher had a particular interest in music and started the school’s first band. The band even made an appearance on television in the early days of RTÉ. One of the band members, Martin Rooney, recalls with fondness his childhood fascination at being part of that whole experience. 

“In 1962 or 1963, the band made an appearance on the famous programme, Seoirse agus Beartlaí. Three or four cars brought the whole band up to Dublin. My memory of the day is seeing oranges being crushed in a drinks dispenser and getting yellow Snacks in the RTÉ Canteen. When the programme was broadcast, there were only two televisions in the area and those two houses were so crowded that I failed to get into either of them to see our performance.” 

I arrived in Carrowmore school at the age of seven in 1968. My previous school had closed due to the school amalgamation scheme in vogue at that time. While I was glad to be leaving where I was, I was quite uncertain about where I was going. For the first two years in my previous school, I had laboured under a harsh regime. I left it having ‘celebrated’ my First Holy Communion as a Senior Infant and I also left with a genuine fear of school, any school. 

To cut a long story short, when I got to Carrowmore, I thought the teacher was lovely and the lessons very easy. The rest of my time in Carrowmore passed without too much incident, despite my academic glass of milk being tainted by dyslexia.

The Carrowmore school building, now 190 years old, is still alive and well. Due to recent renovations, the school is probably in better condition today than at any time while pupils passed through it.

* Acknowledgement: Much of the information on Carrowmore National School provided here came from a publication, From Plain to Hill (1995), a book created as part of a FÁS project under the auspices of Achonry/Mullinabreena Developing the West Group.