Mount Saint Joseph Monastery

Detached four-bay two-storey national school, rebuilt 1925-6; opened 1926, on a T-shaped plan centred on two-bay two-storey double gable-fronted breakfront. Refenestrated, ----. Hipped slate roof on a T-shaped plan centred on pitched (double gable-fronted) slate roofs (breakfront), clay ridge tiles, gritdashed fine roughcast buttressed chimney stacks having cornice capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta pots, "Cavetto"-detailed concrete coping to gables on ogee kneelers with Celtic Cross finials to apexes, and cast-iron rainwater goods on box eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Gritdashed fine roughcast walls with rendered "bas-relief" strips to corners. Grouped square-headed window openings centred on paired square-headed window openings with concrete sills, and rendered "bas-relief" surrounds framing replacement aluminium casement windows replacing twelve-over-twelve timber sash windows. Pair of square-headed door openings to rear (east) elevation, surrounds having bull nose-detailed reveals with corbelled stepped hood mouldings framing replacement glazed aluminium doors. Set in landscaped grounds shared with Mount Saint Joseph Monastery.

A national school erected to a design by Patrick W. Coughlan (fl. 1911-50) of Mitchelstown, County Cork (Irish Builder 30th May 1925, 446) representing an important component of the built heritage of New Ross with the architectural value of the composition, one repurposing a school (1849) displaying an abbreviated footprint on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1902; published 1904), confirmed by such attributes as the symmetrical footprint centred on an expressed breakfront; and the uniform proportions of the grouped openings on each floor. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric: however, the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of a national school forming part of a self-contained group alongside an adjacent monastery (see 15605165) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in Maiden Lane.