‘We wanted to celebrate the school, and the people who attended it’ – author

“We wanted to celebrate the school, and the people who attended it”

A new book both charting and celebrating the 90th anniversary of Curravagh National School in Glangevlin will be launched next week.

The husband and wife team behind ‘Curravagh NS 1933-2023 and Glangevlin County Cavan’ couldn’t be better qualified to produce the book. Tara Scott is the principal of Curravagh National School, while husband Brendan Scott is historian in residence for County Cavan. If that wasn’t enough, their two children also attend the school.

“We wanted to celebrate the school, and the people who attended it,” Brendan told the Celt of the impetus behind the project.

Rather than wait for the centenary in 2033, they decided to seize the moment and mark the nine decades of the school’s status as one of the major anchors of community life in this part of West Cavan.

“We felt there are still people alive who remember the early years of the school and we thought we should grab those memories now while we have the chance,” said Brendan.

The beautifully presented book runs to 300 pages, and is brimming with photos of the many pupils and teachers who graced its classrooms, and the wider community.

Founded in very different times for rural Ireland, the book is a story of survival.

“At one point there were five schools in Glangevlin,” says Brendan of the early 20th Century, “It’s hard to believe when you see the area now, as the population is much smaller.

“We’re down to one school now and we want to keep that school open. It’s a great wee school,” he praises.

Curravagh NS was built as an upgraded replacement of two existing national schools “in poor physical shape”.

“They decided to shut them down and have an entirely new build. It was built very, very quickly - the tender was put out in early 1933 and the school was opened on 11th of December 1933. It was a very very quick turn around,” he marvels.

The pebble-dashed structure itself is only one part of the story, it’s what it stands for in terms of both investment and hope in the youth of Glangevlin down through the last century. Brendan uses the example of Tara’s family:

“My wife’s grandmother, Bridget Fitzpatrick went there; her mother, and aunts and uncles went there; she and her brothers and sisters went there, and now our children go there - four generations of the one family have gone to school in Curravagh.

“Tara is the eldest in her family and she tells the story in the book of bringing her younger sister on her first day of school walking her hand in hand up the yard and into the classroom. And this year our eldest daughter did the same thing with her younger sister and walked her up the yard. Tara was just looking at this considering the circle of life continues - it just goes around and around. She said that if our girls have as happy a time as she did, then will be very pleased.”

As the population of the area dwindled over the decades, the fate of the school was uncertain at times.

The curate in Glangevlin, Fr Eamon Lynch has written a piece recalling how the school was in danger of closing in the 1970s in preference to a new build at a site behind the hall in Glangevlin. Instead another school closed in a further amalgamation followed with Curravagh selected to survive school “because it was in a better condition”.

“So there’s been this continuation of amalgamation until the point where there is one now,” says Brendan.

The school has had challenges in the recent past too. Between 2011 and 2017 the Curravagh NS catchment area suffered a population drop of nearly nine per cent and the subsequent declining pupil intake threatened the loss of one of its two teachers.

The Stand With Glan campaign to attract new families into the area was launched to much success.

“The Celt were a great support to us during that whole campaign and we got new families to move into the area and made a great, positive impact on the area - so the school was able to keep going and long may that continue.

“It’s such a small school in terms of numbers, the pupils all get along and play together, work together and have fun together - it has a lovely family atmosphere. It’s a lovely place and I’m really glad we’ve got the chance to put together this book.”

The book also stands as a mini-history on the area too, touching on the other schools in the area and old stories of Glan.

“The book is not just about Curravagh, we tried to bring in anything Glangevlin related, we have got stories going back to 14th Century Gaelic manuscripts from Glangevlin through to an essay about the townland names of Glangevlin, another on the old schools pre-Curravagh that were in the area, an essay about one of the local priests, and another on creameries that never opened for one reason or another in Glangevlin.”

The couple felt it was important to include recollections of local people who attended the other schools in the area.

“We felt because this is the one school left, we should try to get in as many stories as we can - now there’s still plenty of stories to be told, but we got what we could as a compendium of Glangevlin, in so far as we could. So you don’t have to have gone to Curravagh National School for this book to mean something to you.

‘Curravagh NS 1933-2023’ will be launched by Michael Harding in Glan Hall on Saturday, December 2.

The book launch is the centre point to a big community event as it will include refreshments with trad music before the launch, and a live band after.

“So even if you don’t want the book, come along for the craic, and have the fun, because things have been quiet around Glan lately so it will be nice to have a bit of a party.”