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
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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.
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.