The History of St Patrick’s NS Strangsmills

The first school in the parish of Kilmacow was built in 1834 in Dunkitt, which is a neighbouring townland. The original school was a two-storey building of limestone and mortar with a large and a small classroom on each storey, the top being occupied by the girls and the ground floor by the boys. In summertime the attendance was about seventy boys and forty to fifty girls. In wintertime this dropped to about forty boys and thirty girls. The school stayed open until 1931 when it was deemed too small for the numbers attending.

St Patrick’s National School was then built on the present site in 1931. There were fifty boys and fifty girls on the roll at that date of opening.

Numbers of pupils have fluctuated considerably since the school was built back in 1931 and we are one of two schools in the parish of Kilmacow. We are a mixed gender school with 198 children currently enrolled.

We have eight classrooms, three Special Education rooms, a staff room and offices for the Principal and Secretary. We are also very lucky to have access to the local community hall which we use for P.E., drama, assembly, Carol Services, Mass etc.