The small Ballygawley school with a big history

A little school with a remarkable past continues to shape young minds nearly two centuries after its foundation.

Glencull National School – now known as St Malachy’s Primary School – was among the earliest government-sanctioned schools in the Ballygawley area. Established in 1833, it was part of a new wave of non-denominational education introduced by the British government to replace the secretive ‘hedge schools’ of the Penal Laws era.

These were so named because many were held along the shaded sides of hedges.

Edmund Rice, who later founded the Congregation of Christian Brothers, attended one such school in Callan, Co Kilkenny.

By 1831, the British government introduced a new national school system – non-denominational in nature – with a six-member Board of Education consisting of two Catholics, two Presbyterians, and two Church of Ireland members.

These schools were designed to be mixed and were instructed not to engage in religious conversion, with clear guidelines on when religious instruction was to take place.

Despite opposition from church clergy, the majority of people supported the initiative.

Glencull stood as a monument to the scheme’s success for 150 years.

By 1833, nearly 800 such national schools had been established across Ireland, with Glencull among the first.

To secure state funding, locals had to show a strong desire for the Glencull school.

Rev John Mulgrew, Rev David Cochrane, Robert, John and William Neely, Patrick Lynch, and H W Devlin all expressed support and together raised £44 – equivalent to about £4,514 today – to construct the 30×19-foot building.

The first teacher was John McKenna, a 38-year-old local who had previously taught at the Greenhill Temporary School (also known as Tullyglush School) in Ballygawley.

He was assisted by John McConnell, who stayed for two years.

Within its first year, Glencull National School enrolled over 100 students, who were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and bookkeeping.

The first female teacher was Miss Turbitt, who led the girls’ school. She was just 20-years-old when she began, and it was recorded in 1837 that she once closed the school for an entire week to enjoy a ‘sea bathing’ holiday.

By 1862, both heads of the school, Charles McGirr and Mary McKenna, were listed as Catholic, yet they maintained the school’s ethos of educating children across all Christian denominations.

At the time, there were 69 Catholic pupils, six Church of Ireland pupils, and ten Presbyterians sharing the same classrooms.

In the early 1900s, educational reforms led to the amalgamation of the boys’ and girls’ schools under Principal Owen Jordan. A kindergarten class was introduced by Miss Annie Sheridan.

Following the partition of Ireland, governance of the school transferred to Belfast and the school was renamed Glencull Elementary School. In the late 1920s, a proposed grant for building improvements failed, but locals stepped up to fund an extension. The upstairs classroom was removed, partitions were added, and two chimneys were installed to allow for wood-burning stoves.

Further improvements followed: Another extension in the 1950s, and by the 1960s, an indoor toilet was finally installed. The 1980s ushered in modernisation. New mobile units were added to accommodate growing numbers, and ‘National’ was dropped from the name, with ‘St Malachy’s’ added instead.

More recently, St Malachy’s Primary School has celebrated various successes as it moves toward its second centenary.

In 2005, after Tyrone won the All-Ireland, Mickey Harte and Fergal McCann visited with the Sam Maguire Cup for pupils to admire and celebrate.

In the years surrounding its 190th anniversary, the school added a new foyer, pitch, and soft play area – and saw enrolment match that of its very first year in 1833.