Avoca National School - S. N. Phàdraig Naofa

History of Avoca School

By Frank Gallagher

The earliest records extant in Avoca National School date from October 1856, but unfortunately these are incomplete. The school was built on the main street of the village in 1854, on a site comprising 10 perches, but there may have been a school in operation in the village since 1835. Prior to the construction of the parish church in 1862, the building was also used for Catholic religious sevices.

The official name of the village at that time was Newbridge, and the school building contained two schools, one for boys and one for girls, and a teacher's residence. Until 1903, the principal of the boys' school was John O'Boyle. Like most teachers of that period and indeed of much later, his mode of transport was a bicycle, but in later years it was John O'Boyle's good humoured boast that he was the first man in Avoca to ride one with pneumatic tyres. John O'Boyle's family had a great tradition of teaching, which extended back to the era of the hedgeschools, and his own father was the principal of the national school in Teelin, Co. Donegal. When his father died in 1903, John O'Boyle returned to his native Teelin to succeed him as principal there. He retained the fondest memories of his years in Avoca, however, telling his children that outside of Donegal it was the friendliest and the most beautiful place in Ireland. It was these stories of Avoca that attracted his son, Seamus, to take up the post of principal of Kilmacoo N.S. in 1955, and five years later in Ballycoog N.S. where Seamus O'Boyle served with distinction until his retirement and tragically sudden death a few days later in the summer of 1983.

Matthew Dunne, a native of Avoca, succeeded John O'Boyle as principal of the boys' school in 1903. He also had a family tradition of teaching and indeed his sister, Mary, served as assistant teacher in Kilmacoo for many years. The principal of the girls' school, Bridget Sheedy, had been appointed since 1877, but on her retirement in 1908, the two schools were amalgamated under Matthew Dunne. With his wife, Alice, newly appointed as assistant teacher, he would serve the school for the next forty years.

This was a period in the history of the school that must have been overshadowed by the cataclysmic events, both national and international, that have characterised the first half of the twentieth century: two world wars, the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties, and, of course, the War of Independence and the foundation of the state in Ireland. The social damage of these upheavels is clearly reflected in the pupil attendance records of this period. In 1937, for instance, the level of pupil attendance between January and March was only 55%. In a medical report of the same year it was noted that the general appearance and nutrition of the pupils was "only fair", and 23 of the 102 pupils in the school were certified as being significantly underweight for their age.

The longevity of Matthew Dunne's tenure may have been an anchor of stability throughout these turbulent times, but there was also significant developments in the school, including a change of name. With national independence came major changes to the curriculum, and despite the haemorrhage of emigration, pupil teacher numbers increased. They reached 122 in July 1927, when a second assistant teacher was appointed to the staff, on a salary of £155 per annum. At that time Alice Dunne was earning £297 per annum and her husband's salary was £333. They also had free accommodation in the teacher's residence attached to the school.

The expansion of the staff to three placed a great strain on the already delapidated school building. In July 1937 it was condemned by the Co. Wicklow School Medical Officer and he recommended that a new school be built on a different site. There were only two classrooms to accommodate the three teachers. There was no water for drinking or even for washing in the school, and the toilets were just two dry closets on the opposite side of the road and they discharged directly into the river below. The children's playground was down at the river bank, a clay surface without a shelter and too small for the numbers then in the school. Fortunately there were no fatal accidents there, but two pupils did fall into the river and had to be rescued from drowning by some of their classmates. Little was done to improve the facilities in the school because there was so little space and because of the continual expectation that the construction of a new school was imminent. This new school would not be built for another twenty years, however, and meanwhile the teachers had to eke out their Dickensian facilities to a limit beyond the patience and endurance of even those harder times.

In 1940 Alice Dunne retired and in 1941 she was replaced by May Conlon, a native of Co. Louth who had been teaching in Dublin. Intending to stay in the isolated village of Avoca for just a short time, she began dating Victor Byrne, the proprietor of the Fountain Bar, and this led to a very happy marriage in 1946. Despite her initial plans, May Byrne was to have a long career in Avoca N.S., and she would serve under all the principals of the amalgamated school except the present one, until she retired as vice-principal in 1979, the year indeed that Mary Brennan joined the staff of Avoca.

May Byrne recalls that when she started working in Avoca, she had to share the larger classroom with the other assistant teacher, Mary O'Neill. Under these circumstances she preferred to conduct her oral lessons in the Dunnes' sitting room in their residence next door, and to return to the shared classroom for written work. Heating was always a problem in winter. The supply of coal was meagre, and to keep the fires going in the afternoon, the children were expected to collect fistfuls of sticks from the margins of the playground as they returned after their breaks. When the weather was very cold, and winters in the nineteen forties were very severe, the teachers would place three benches round the single fire in their room, and sit half the pupils on these for an oral lesson and to heat up, while the other pupils did some written work at their desks in the much cooler part of the room. After a while the two groups would change tasks, and places near the fire.

In 1948 Matthew Dunne retired after forty-five years as a principal teacher in Avoca - a record that is most unlikely to be equalled again. He was succeeded by Tadhg O'Sullivan, who had been the principal of Kilmacoo National School. In 1951, however, he resigned to take up a principalship in his native Killarney. In February 1952 Stephen Keane was appointed principal of Avoca, but his sojourn in the post was even shorter; for he resigned in November 1953 to become an inspector in the Department of Education. Both men worked in Avoca for too short a time to make a significant impact on the school, but they are remembered as kindly and efficient teachers.

On 1st December 1953 Robert Stack was appointed principal of what was still called Newbridge Mixed National School in the Department's correspondence.
An exceptional musician, who would become director of the Arklow Silver Band in the nineteen sixties. His first achievement in Avoca was to preside over the construction of a new school building, which was situated a little farther up the hill from the village, thus ending a century of education in the old building. The new shool was opened in 1958, and it comprised of four classrooms, and proper cloakrooms and toilets for the boys and girls, and a playground with a shelter and a hard surface. It did not have a staffroom, however, and throughout its use as a school, the teachers took their lunch in May Byrne's classroom, where she would have the kettle boiled and her table cleared in readiness for her colleagues' company.

In November 1958, with a total of 173 pupils on the roll, the staff expanded to four teachers. Along with Bob Stack and May Byrne, Maude Doyle had been in the school since 1957, and Agnes O'Brien, later to become principal of Brittas Bay National School, now joined them.

Maude Doyle had first come to teach in Barraniskey in 1916, but two years later she moved to a school in Virginia, Co. Cavan. A member of Cumann na mBan, she was dismissed from this post because of her involvement in the War of Independence. She returned to Redcross to marry Jimmy Doyle, a local farmer and the captain of the local flying column during the same War of Independence. Maude Doyle soon resumed her teaching career in the area, her reputation merely enhanced by her Cavan experience, and she eventually became the principal of Brittas Bay National School. In the early nineteen fifties blindness from eye cataracts had forced her premature retirement, but some years later, after successful surgery, she had been able to return to teaching, this time in Avoca, until her final retirement at the age of sixty eight in 1961.
Maude Doyle would become the grandmother of two later members of the staff: Jimmy and Mary Doyle, who taught together in the nineteen eighties and early nineties.

Agnes O'Brien was succeeded in January 1960 by Helen Brennan, who is the mother of Mary Brennan, the present principal of the school, but she stayed just a short time in Avoca before she transferred to Templerainey National School.

By July 1965 there were 211 pupils on the roll, still being taught by just four teachers. It must have been difficult for everyone to cope with a pupil-teacher ratio of 1:53, but in January 1966 the situation eased in one respect when the staff expanded to five. The relief of an extra teacher brought its own problems, however, because less than eight years after its construction, the new school was one classroom short for its complement of teachers, and a prefabricated hut had to be erected in the playground. Once again accommodation had become a major problem for Avoca National School.
By July 1967 pupil numbers had fallen to 184, but the more favourable staffing schedule of the Department of Education enabled the school to retain its fifth teacher. July 1967 was to be Bob Stack's last month as an active teacher, however, for during the summer holidays he became too ill to return to work and he died in December. Tony Hogan was appointed acting principal for this period, but throughout the academic year plans were underway for an amalgamation of Avoca National School with Kilmacoo National School, and when this occurred in July 1968, Andy Gallagher, the incumbent principal of Kilmacoo, was appointed to succeed Bob Stack.

Like his predecessors in Avoca and Kilmacoo, John and Seamus O'Boyle,
Andy Gallagher was a native of Co.Donegal. His thirty-year tenure as principal of Avoca was to coincide with the period of greatest change in the history of the school.

Although the amalgamation increased the number of pupils on the roll to 231, the staff remained at five, with a pupil-teacher ratio almost as bad as that of 1965. May Byrne was the vice-principal and John Hynes was the only other remaining member of Bob Stack's staff. Mary Mc.Cabe had transferred with Andy Gallagher from Kilmacoo, and Billy O'Keefe was a new appointment, later to become principal of Redcross National School. In practice class numbers were not quite so great, however, because the parents of Kilmacoo, in protest at the loss of their local school, organised a complete boycott of Avoca. Coming from Kilmacoo school himself, Andy Gallagher was well placed to assuage their dissatisfaction, but it took him over eighteen months of persuasion and reassurance to finally lift this boycott.

At this time the local economy of Avoca was booming, with the NET factory at the mouth of the valley employing over 1,000 people, and with the Avoca Mines at the head of the valley employing over 200 people by the mid-seventies. The traditional industries of farming and forestry, textiles and tourism continued unabated, and there was full employment in good jobs for the local workforce, not to mention for the many returned emigrants who settled in the area. This booming economy had its effect on the school numbers, and in October 1969 the staff expanded to six teachers. This of course required the erection of a second prefabricated hut in the playground, to be supplemented by a third one in 1972, when Gabriel Fitzmaurice, the noted Kerry poet, joined the staff for a few years.
This last hut had to be placed on the small grassy patch in the playground, and it greatly curtailed Andy Gallagher's daily football match with his pupils during the lunch breaks.

The early nineteen seventies saw the introduction of a new curriculum that revolutionised Irish primary education, with its emphasis on pupil-centred, heuristic teaching. Some new subjects were introduced and the methodology of most subjects was changed, but the lack of an assembly hall in the school imposed restrictions on what could be done in a subject like Physical Education.
On 27th October 1975 the first meeting of Avoca's Board of Management occurred, and this innovation transformend the management structure of the school. The composition of the board reflected a new diffusion of authority between the local clergy, the teachers, and the parents to make the school more democratic and more integrated with community life.
The members of the first board were Fr. Hurley, Fr. O'Byrne, Joan Andrews,
Des Hendley, Chrissie Fox, Seamus Delaney, Andy Gallagher, and May Byrne.
This board and its successors have worked very successfully and harmoniously for the good of the school and its pupils.

There was an unexpected fall in pupil numbers to 217 in 1974 and this resulted in the reduction of the staff to six teachers once again, but it was obvious to all that pupil numbers had not stabilised, and in 1978 with 240 on the roll the teaching staff was indeed restored to seven. With almost half the school in temporary and rapidly deteriorating accommodation, however, and further increases in pupil numbers expected, the Board of Management's first task was to address what seemed to be the perennial problem of management in Avoca - too many pupils in a building that was too small and dilapidated. In October 1977, for instance, the Board was informed that the roof of one of the prefabricated huts was leaking and that a child's foot had gone through the floor.

To their dismay the Board was also informed that the site of the existing school was unsuitable for the required expansion because of its small size and that a new school would have to be built on another site. Moreover, the cost of a new school would be little more than the cost of a major extension. A field was purchased in Kilmagig and construction proceeded with such expedition that the staff and pupils were able to move into the new building in March 1979. This school could accommodate eight teachers and their classes, two in a shared area complex of one very large room and two small adjoining ones. There was a large assembly hall, and staff rooms and storerooms and offices, and even a telephone, and it finally solved the problem of school accommodation in Avoca.

In the summer of 1979, after just a few months in the new school, May Byrne retired. In her thirty-eight years of service to the community of Avoca, she had worked with all of its principals since 1908, and taught in all three of its schools. Her retirement celebrations were overshadowed, however, by the sudden and recent death of her husband, Victor.

In 1980 the rapid turnover of staff that had characterised the previous two decades came more or less to an end. During that time there had been at least one change in personnel per year and often two or even three changes, all in a school with just five, six or seven teaching positions. At the time of writing, however, all but one of the staff had joined the school in or before 1980: Eddie O'Sullivan in 1973, Marina Clune in 1978, Mary Brennan in 1979, Catherine Power and Frank Gallagher in 1980. The end in this fluidity in staff was a local reflection of a national trend in teaching: the ageing of the profession.
For two decades the majority of teachers had been in their early twenties and single and not especially tied to a particular area; now they were older and probably married and more settled and less likely to change their jobs.

In January 1982, with the appointment of Jimmy Doyle, the staff expanded for the first time to eight teachers, and shortly afterwards, in September 1983, the school was provided for the first time with a remedial service, on two days a week and by a teacher who was based in Templerainey National School. The other members of the staff at that time were Andy Gallagher, of course, and Mairead Bonner, but her resignation to emigrate to America in January 1984 coincided with a reduction in the staff level to seven teachers once again.

The mid-eighties saw the employment of caretakers and a secretary to the school under the Social Employment Scheme, and their services have greatly helped the school ever since. It was at this time also that the school acquired its first computer and its first photocopier.

In 1986 the staff rose to eight teachers once again with the appointment of Kathleen O'Riordan. In 1990 she was replaced by Mary Doyle. Both these teachers had been on the staff for some years prior to their permanent appointments, working as temporary teachers while Catherine Power and Jimmy Doyle were on career breaks.

The nineteen eighties were a period of economic recession in Ireland and Avoca did not escape from this recession. The Avoca Mines closed in 1982 with the loss of 227 jobs, and shortly afterwards there were major lay-offs in the NET factory that reduced the workforce to less than 400. This led to a gradual migration from the area, which had serious implications for pupil numbers in the school. Moreover, in line with national demography, the local birth rate began to fall dramatically in the early nineteen eighties, and this trend compounded the effects of economic decline on the school.

There is always a certain time-lag between such causes and their effects on a school, however, and in 1987, with 272 on the roll, pupil numbers reached a record level. But they began to fall steadily from that year until 1995 when they stabilised around 160 pupils - the lowest number on the roll since 1957. The effects of this fall were mitigated by major improvements in the staffing schedule of the Department of Education, and this had the added benefit of a much improved pupil-teacher ratio in the school during the nineteen nineties. Nevertheless in August 1994 Mary Doyle left the school because of falling numbers and exactly two years later her brother Jimmy also left for the same reason, thus reducing the teaching staff to six.

In the mid-nineties a very effective parents' association was formed, and through their fund-raising activities they have endowed the school with computers, library books, and other resources.

In September 1997 Avoca National School itself became a base-school for a remedial service to Brittas Bay, Barndarrig, Redcross, and Ballycoogue; and when Frank Gallagher moved to this job in an ex-quota capacity, Claire Byrne was appointed in his place.

The last three decades of the century were periods of enormous change in Irish education in general and in Avoca National School in particular, and all these changes made great demands on Andy Gallagher's skills as a principal, but he led his teachers, his pupils, and their parents with sensitivity and efficiency, and he rose without fuss to every challenge.

His greatest legacy to the people of Avoca, however, is the pupils he taught. Whether in passing on the higher skills of reading or a simple enjoyment of books, or in imbuing his pupils with a love of his native Irish language, Andy Gallagher will influence the community of Avoca for generations to come. As his former pupils grow up and raise their own families, many will have stories to tell their own children of their games of football with him every lunch break or their happy exploits on the stage at Christmas. Whatever their talents, his pupils surpassed themselves academically and found encouragement for their personal development in his classes.

In 1998 Andy Gallagher retired as principal of the school, to the plaudits of pupils, colleagues, and the wider community, and as the century drew to a close,
Mary Brennan, who had been a member of his staff for nineteen years, was appointed his successor. She would be the first female principal in Avoca since Bridget Sheedy retired from the old girls' school at the beginning of the century; and so, in more ways than one, the circle of time had made a revolution.

Frank Gallagher © 1998

Sources:
The Vale of Avoca, Caoimhín de Líon,
Avoca School Records,
Conversations with May Byrne, retired vice-principal of Avoca NS,
Pauline O'Boyle, daughter-in-law of John O'Boyle,
Maureen Doyle, daughter-in-law of Maude Doyle,
Andy Gallagher, retired principal of Avoca NS.

The 'Old School House' in Avoca Village

Avoca Village - River View

School Band pictured in front of the Old School House

Mary Brennan with her Class in the Hall of the New School House