Survey Data

Reg No

11902803


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Historical, Social


Previous Name

Scoil Bhríde


Original Use

School


In Use As

House


Date

1925 - 1945


Coordinates

278254, 208851


Date Recorded

23/10/2002


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Detached five-bay double-height former national school, c.1935, on a H-shaped plan comprising single-bay double-height recessed entrance bay to centre with two-bay double-height gabled projecting flanking end bays. Renovated and refenestrated, c.1970, to accommodate residential use. Gable-ended (gable-fronted) roofs on a H-shaped plan with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Granite coping to gables. Overhanging timber eaves and bargeboards on corbelled eaves band. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Replacement nap rendered walls, c.1970, to front elevation to south-west. Profiled sections between openings. Original roughcast walls to remainder. Painted. Cut-stone plaque. Square-headed window openings. Granite sills. Replacement aluminium casement windows, c.1970. Square-headed door opening. Replacement glazed timber panelled door, c.1970. Sidelights and overlights. Set back from road in own grounds. Cast-concrete boundary wall to circumference of site.

Appraisal

Saint Brigid's National School (former) is a fine example of an early Board of Works design for the Board of Education. Designed on a simple H-shaped plan the front (south-west) elevation is composed of graceful proportions and indicates the internal arrangement on the outside (the two projecting bays representing a classroom each inside). The school has been altered in recent years, including the replacement of its original fenestration and render to the front walls, yet is of social and historic interest for its original intended purposes as the earliest purpose-built educational facility in the locality. The school also represents early to mid twentieth-century attempts to improve the standard of education of the rural population throughout the country. Some original features remain intact, including the slate roof having cast-iron rainwater goods - the re-instatement of traditional-style timber fenestration might restore a more accurate representation of the original appearance of the school.