A Brief History of the Schools in Cooloo:
By John Meehan
The present School was built in 1959-1960 and it is thought to be the fourth school in this area. The first known school was what was then called a hedge school. This was located at the back of Tom Fahy’s house, which is now where the present farmyard is. I don’t know when this school existed, or for how long.
The next School was situated in what is known as the old school yard. It was a thatched building and ran parallel to the main Cooloo-Laught road, with an exit out to this road. This exit can still be traced on the boundary wall. A sanded area which was the entrance to this school was in existence up to the late 1960’s and was used as the floor area for ball alley games; the wall which was used for those games was the gable wall of a later school, the previous one to the present school. This correspondent does not know what happened to this school; perhaps the pupils burned it down.
The next and third school was built on this same site, but this time running parallel with the Cooloo to Ballinastack road with two entrances boys and girls, from this road. This school was completed in 1896. It was the first building in mass concrete and caused much discussion amongst the villagers and further afield. It was called a stir-a-bout building another name for porridge and they thought it would fall within a few years. The local stonemasons despised it as all buildings up to this were built with stone and mortar, which was a mixture of lime and sand with the blood of animals used as a wetting agent. This building was a fine solid basic building, roofed with pitch pine timber and slates. There was no maintenance what so ever carried out to this school, which consisted of four classrooms, and two cloakrooms cum turf sheds. The toilet facility consisted of a communal building at the end of the playground, which boys and girls had to use winter and summer and was known as a dry toilet with no water, hence the name. The floor of the school was a timber floor with ventilators underneath to the outside; these floors seldom needed sweeping except around the open fire, as the breeze coming up under the floor kept it clean. In those early years the boys and girls of infant class all wore skirts, moving to higher classes the boys then wore short pants until they finished school at about fourteen years of age and then wore long pants. In those years about a hundred pupils attended this school, with many going on to higher education afterwards. The first know teacher was a John Meehan who came from Co. Leitrim and was hired by the Browns of Cooloo house that were Catholic landlords and provided the schoolbooks. In the 1890’s Patrick Murphy, came from Co. Mayo and was principal of the school until his own family took over, Anthony and Jetta. Jetta retired shortly after the opening of the present school in the 1960’s.
The present school which was opened in 1960 was built on land owned by the Wall family. As money was very scarce at that time negotiations were going on for many years with sites suggested around the area, first by Fr. Fitzgerald and later finalised by Fr. T. Murphy P.P. The teacher’s residence was situated beside the school and is now the residence of the McHugh family. As already stated the old school had four big fireplaces and each year every family would bring a load of turf to school, some of it very dry but alas some of it very wet which caused more smoke than fire. Pupils would each bring a bottle of milk and they would be placed around the fire to warm it for lunchtime. There was just one clock in the room and pupils would try putting it forward during the day.
The building of Saint Bridget’s National School Cooloo commenced in 1959 and was completed in 1960. The main contractor for the building was James Farragher and sons Ballygaddy Road, Tuam. The foreman was Austin Winston Tuam, father- in-law of Eileen Hughes Mountbellew. Farraghers made all the concrete blocks for the building and later went on to set up C.M.C. Concrete. This was the first building in this locality to be built with cavity walls, but with no insulation in the walls. As machinery was very scarce at this time a lot of labour was employed in the project. As the concrete roofs were covered with an ash felt coating a special contracting company from Dublin were employed for this work, it was the first time that men were seen working without shirts and they would start at day break melting the slabs of ash felt. As there was no running water in the village a well had to be bored. The firm who did this work came from County Longford, and spent several weeks boring through rock. This water was then pumped to a high tower beside the school, but alas this water was not fit for human consumption. Another wonder and first for the area was the system used for electric wiring, where the wires fed through steel conduit on the walls. The windows and furnishings were made in Farraghers own workshop; the principal carpenter was Michael Loughnane and sons Monivea. O'Higgins & Co. Shantalla Galway supplied the seats, which were twin seats and replaced the old ten foot benches that existed in the old school. These were recently replaced by the present chairs and tables. The roofing of the school was carried out by the Lynch brothers of Roscommon footballing fame and received great admiration from the local youngsters. The general labourer throughout the building of the school was Jimmie Rabbitte of Cloonascragh, who was the link between all the sub-contractors . The plastering work was carried out by a group of plasterers headed by Jack Dowd from Cloonkell, Moylough. All those just worked for a weekly wage, which was small compared to later years. The old school closed its uudoors for the last time in June 1960, and in September 1960, approximately one hundred pupils and three teachers, Principal Anthony Murphy, assistants Jetta Murphy and Margaret Ryan (Bob) moved into the new school.
This is the word of someone who knows