Christian Brothers' Schools

Detached ten-bay (two-bay deep) two-storey national school, built 1905, on a rectangular plan originally attached. Hipped and pitched slate roof with ridge tiles, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on rendered eaves with cast-iron rainwater goods to rear (south) elevation on rendered eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Rendered walls with rusticated rendered piers to corners supporting rendered band to eaves. Camber-headed window openings (ground floor) with rendered chamfered sill course, and rendered surrounds framing four-over-one timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings (first floor) with rendered sill course, and paired roundel-detailed rendered lugged surrounds framing four-over-two timber sash windows. Camber-headed window openings to rear (south) elevation with concrete or rendered sills, and concealed dressings framing four-over-one timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings (first floor) with concrete or rendered sills, and concealed dressings framing four-over-four timber sash windows. Quay fronted with limestone flagged footpath to front having cut-limestone coping.

A national school erected to designs by Samuel Francis Hynes (1854-1931) of South Mall, Cork, representing an integral component of the built heritage of Cork with the architectural value of the composition, one repurposing earlier premises (1828) '[with] a row of five shops along the ground floor [whose] rental helped the Brothers to fund the school in the early decades' (Herlihy 2010, 103-4), suggested by such attributes as the elongated rectilinear plan form; and the diminishing in scale of the slender openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thus upholding the character or integrity of a national school making a pleasing visual statement overlooking the River Lee.