History of The Schoolhouse...

The ¾ acre site was given to the local parish in 1939 by Mr Thomas McHugh to build the schoolhouse for the families of the parish. Mr McHugh and his wife served as the Headmaster and Headmistress of the school and lived very local.

The building was constructed from mass concrete mixed on site from gravel brought from Lough Allen and Portland cement. The method of construction was to create shuttering to a height of approx 400mm around the external walls and the internal dividing wall. When this course of concrete set the shuttering was repositioned above the previous work and another course was poured such that the walls reached roof level after approx 12 courses of the concrete mix.

The schoolhouse was of a standard design with two classrooms 20 feet by 20 feet (6.0 metres x 6.0 metres) with a floor to ceiling height of 14 feet. Each room had three 8 foot by 4 foot windows, open fire place and natural ventilation from the openings in each corner and the roof mounted ceiling extract system. Cloakrooms and an external corridor were added later. A separate toilet block was located to the south west corner of the site

The school was open until the early 1960`s when the pupils were then sent to a neighbouring school . During the sixties the school was used as an adult training centre for the textile industry. Each room was equipped with industrial sewing machines to train the local workforce. Over the next thirty years the building became derelict and served as a cattle shed before the present owner undertook the refurbishment project.

• Download a slide show of the original survey... (4mb)
• Download a slide show of the demolitions stage... (3mb)
• Download a slide show of the construction stage... (4mb)