Nowadays the children of the Dunfanaghy area have their education needs looked after with several local primary schools and their teachers – Holy Cross, Holy Trinity, Faugher, Ballymore and Murroe. In recent years, these schools have undergone some refurbishments and are equipped with the latest technology for learning in a digital age, though it has not always been like this.
The Irish School System has come a long way since the days of the Hedge Schools, when Teachers would teach pupils in the open air and in private homes to give children a chance of an education. The Hedge Schools were set up in response to the 1695 Stuart Monarchs which prohibited Catholics from getting an education. This remained in force until it was repealed in 1782. Its’s believed that by the 1820s, up to 400,000 students, in 9000 schools, were educated through Hedge Schools.
In the early 1800s, a formal education for Catholics in Ireland, was established by Ignatius Rice, and by 1831, the Board of National Education and the National School System was established. A Commissioner of National Education was set up and their role was to assist in the funding of primary school construction, textbook production, and the training/funding of teachers in National Schools. It wasn’t until 1967 with Free Secondary Education Act in the Republic of Ireland that secondary school education became open for all.
Just over 100 years ago in the Dunfanaghy area there were different National Schools to what we know now and some of these buildings are no longer standing. For the children of Hornhead, their school was located in a building in what is now Wilson’s farm in Lurgabrack. This was the school that my grandmother would have attended and she often spoke of having to run the gauntlet of passing Stewart the Landlords Bull which was in the field on the way to the school morning and evening on her way to school in the late 1800 and early 1900’s. In those days’ children walked to school Summer and Winter often in the bare feet. After the fall of the Landlords, this School was moved to the Gate Lodge for Hornhead House at The Bridge and it features on old pictures of when the sand blew in Hornhead and the Teacher and Pupils would have to dig themselves out of the sand in the evening and their Lunches would be filled with blowing sand!
In the late 1930s, it was decided to close this school and move the pupils to the Robertson School Board School which was located where the car park beside the Holy Trinity Parish Hall is now. This decision did not sit well with the parents from Hornhead and there was a strike for a few months before the children eventually went to the Robinson School which was known as Dunfanaghy Number One National School. This meant a long walk for the children of Hornhead and there was no clock in the school. So, the Master would send the children over across the road to the Garda Barrack to get the time and often the Guard on Duty would give them the wrong time which meant the children would get sent home early! The headmaster here was Master Barlow and he went on to teach in Holy Trinity School when it was opened and the old School which was a landmark at the top of the town was demolished to make way for the car park.
100 years ago, the Catholic Children of Dunfanaghy would have been receiving their education in a school which is now also demolished at the entrance to the present day Holy Cross Cemetery. The school then moved to the Old Fever Hospital in Dunfanaghy which is now the Gallery. The teacher was Eamon Cannon who moved to Dunfanaghy from the south of the county and was to be instrumental in the Educational, Sporting and Musical life of Dunfanaghy for decades afterwards.
Both schools would share important information with each other such as when the School Inspector would put in an unexpected appearance.
Master Cannon and his pupil, like their neighbours down the road, moved to a new school with the opening of Holy Cross NS which is still educating children today.
The Old Murroe School would have been providing education to the children in its area in the early 1900s, and like all schools at the time pupils would be absent from school when the hard work had to be done on the farm. Ireland was largely a rural economy back then and the horses and carts were the driving force on the farms and the hiring fairs were still a fact of life which saw many children take the train to Letterkenny to be hired in the agricultural heartland of the Laggan and elsewhere. The new school at Murroe was built and opened in the 1960s.
Among the other schools in the area were at Roshine which has closed and Kildarragh which only closed in the 1980s when its pupils moved to Creeslough.
100 years ago, Ballymore School would have been providing education to all the children in the area and among those who would have attended in the early 1920s would have been the late Bridget McBride from Knocknafaugher who only passed away recently. The School at Ballymore continued to educate the children of the area until Faugher NS was opened.
Like Ballymore, Faugher NS continues to provide education for the children of the area and this is due in no small way to the campaign led by the parents in the 1980s to keep the school open when plans were afoot to close the school and move their pupils elsewhere.
This is just a small history of some the schools in the area and things have certainly changed in the past 100 years and those at school then just at the start of the Irish Free State could hardly have thought that in a few short months a Civil War would have broken out and just 17 years later we would find ourselves in ‘The Emergency’ as the Second World War was known here would break out and they would certainly not have known about the technological advances which would take place during their lifetime and change their lives forever.
