School in Manorcunningham, County Donegal

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Detached two-bay single-storey over basement former national school or Sunday school, built c. 1820, having single-bay single-storey outbuilding attached to east and with later single-storey outbuilding attached to the west. Now out of use. Pitched natural slate roof with projecting cut stone eaves course, some surviving sections of metal rainwater goods, and with rendered chimneystack to the west gable end. Pitched corrugated-asbestos roof to outbuilding to the east. Roughcast lime render over rubble stone construction. Square-headed window openings with stone sills and with remains of timber framed windows; windows now boarded. Square-headed doorway to the east gable end having timber sheeted door. Set back from road to the west end of Ray Cottages, and to the south-west of the centre of Manorcunningham. Located adjacent to the grounds of Raymochy Church of Ireland Parish church (40827003).

This modest small-scale former national school or Sunday school associated with the adjacent Raymochy Church of Ireland Parish church retains much of its early character and form despite being out of use for a considerable period. It is robustly-built using local rubble stone masonry, while its visual expression and integrity is enhanced by the retention of the natural slate roof. This building is of social importance to the local community as a former social and is of historical interest as an early surviving example of its type and date. Many small-scale national schools of this type were built throughout the Irish countryside in the decades following the establishment of the National Education Board in 1831 but few of these early buildings survive today. This school may be earlier again, and is depicted on the Ordnance Survey first inch map of c. 1837. It was still in use as a school in 1860 (Griffith’s Valuation) but appears to have gone out of use by c. 1903-5 (Ordnance Survey twentieth-five inch map. Its location adjacent to the Church of Ireland church at Manorcunningham hints that it may have been in use as a Sunday school. It may be the Church Education Society school recorded in Slater’s Directory of 1881 when a John Ball was the schoolmaster. This unassuming building is a modest addition to the built heritage of the local area, adding interest to the streetscape to the south-west corner of the small village of Manorcunningham. Sensitively restored it would make a strongly positive contribution to its secluded location to the west end of Ray Cottages.

From the Buildings of Ireland (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage) record 40827004

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Picture notes

Kenneth Allen, Geograph · Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Computer-made picture. It does not show this playground.
Sitomon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Eeno11, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
Kenneth Allen, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Kenneth Allen, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Steven Brown, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Ian S, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

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