Cloonfane National School

Detached five-bay single-storey national school, built 1889; extant 1895, on a symmetrical plan with pair of single-bay single-storey gabled projecting lower porches. "Improved", 1932, producing present composition. Closed, 1979. Now disused. Pitched slate roofs including pitched (gabled) slate roofs to porches with clay ridge tiles, and cast-iron rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on exposed timber rafters retaining cast-iron downpipes. Rendered walls centred on inscribed drag edged rusticated cut-limestone plaque. Square-headed window openings to front (north) elevation centred on paired camber-headed window openings with drag edged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings with fittings now boarded-up. Square-headed window openings (remainder) with drag edged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-nine timber sash windows with timber casement windows to rear (south) elevation. Set back from line of road in unkempt grounds.

A dilapidated national school erected for the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland (established 1831) representing an integral component of the later nineteenth-century built heritage of the rural environs of Carracastle: meanwhile, aspects of the composition illustrate the continued development or "improvement" of the national school in the twentieth century. A prolonged period of neglect notwithstanding, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thereby upholding much of the character or integrity of a national school making a pleasing, if increasingly forlorn visual statement in a sylvan setting.