Former Tullyveela school for sale after 15 years

Róisín McManus

Almost 15 years after it was last occupied, the site of the former Tullyveela National School is for sale.

The parish of Corlough and Templeport owns the land surrounding the property after the Department of Education and Youth surrendered the building to the parish before Christmas last year.

A spokesperson from the Department confirmed to the Celt that it had received a request to release its interests on Tullyveela school in April 2024.

The sale is being organised by the Corlough and Templeport Parish Finance Committee and proceeds of the sale will be returned to the parish.

Other than storing chairs while work was ongoing in 2014 to open the nearby Corlough Community Centre, formerly Corratillan NS, the school has not been used and has suffered significant degradation through weather damage and vandalism that occurred during the pandemic.

On September 28, 2011, Tullyveela NS closed its doors for the final time. On that day, 54 students were collected and brought by bus to their brand new school in the townland of Corlough, a stone’s throw from St Patrick’s Church.

The school’s name was changed to that of Corlough’s patron saint to represent their new location at the centre of the community.

Moving to the new school was “exciting,” recalls Breda Maguire, the school’s former principal who taught there for 37 “very, very happy years”.

Breda McGovern at the time, she became Tullyveela’s fourth teacher when she joined in September 1985.

At the time, there were 135 students in the school, one prefab to the side of the building and no school uniforms.

Ms McGovern “came with the new prefab” at the back of the building to teach 28 third and fourth class students. Interestingly, out of the 28 children in Breda’s classroom, there were 14 McGoverns!

Although, originally she was only asked to cover for two weeks for Nora Plunkett, the school principal at the time, Breda never left Tullyveela.

“I loved the children, the families, the community, the culture and the unwavering support,” she says fondly.

It was a “huge honour” when, in the summer of 1994, Breda became the school’s principal, a role she held until her retirement in October 2023.

“I felt very much part of the community,” she reflects.

Following a Whole School Evaluation (WSE) in 1999, Tullyveela NS was allocated funding through a devolved grant scheme for an extension to replace the two prefabs that still stand to the side and rear of the building.

However, it was discovered that building an extension would pose a significant risk to the structural integrity of the building and it would have to be knocked down to facilitate works, which would have been very expensive.

The site of the new St Patrick’s NS was offered to the Department of Education by then parish priest Fr Eamon Lynch, with permission from then Bishop of Kilmore Leo O'Reilly, in conjunction with the Board of Management, and they applied for funding for a new school building.

After many letters and visits to the Department, the new school was officially opened by Bishop O’Reilly on May 11, 2012.

“It was a breath of fresh air to the students,” says Breda of the new school. “They loved it, we had great facilities.”

Since Tullyveela school first opened in 1853, more than 1600 students were educated there until it closed in 2011.

From the late 60s to the early 80s, 10 local national schools amalgamated into Tullyveela - Ardmoneen, Clogher, Derradda, Drumleaden, Corratillan, Arderra, Tomena, Tullybrack, Altachullion and Tullyveela.

The new school building, meanwhile, was designed specifically to meet the needs of the school with a dedicated general purpose room, learning support room, library, staff room and play facilities, which were all once contained within a smaller, shared space in Tullyveela.

To ensure the memories of Tullyveela school lived on, the new St Patrick's NS features memorabilia from Tullyveela, including a brass shield with the initials of every student from when the school moved, a tapestry that details the move from Tullyveela to Corlough and photos documenting life in Tullyveela that were taken before the move.

“We brought the old to the new,” Breda recalls.

Not far from the Leitrim border, the school has always hosted students from the neighbouring county. Despite a “great rivalry” between Corlough and Aughawillan in football, it “never affected” students while playing for the school team, Breda remembers.

Now that Tullyveela school is up for sale, the former principal would love to see it “serve a purpose” in the community so the parish could “benefit from it”.

“It’s a little bit sad to see it sitting there,” Breda says.

The Anglo-Celt recently visited the old Tullyveela school to meet Corlough and Templeport Parish Finance Committee members Hughie McGovern, Elizabeth Baxter, Annmarie McTeggart and parish priest Fr Sean Maguire.

Speaking to the Celt, Tommy Brennan, who sat on the first committee of Tullyveela school, said it was a “pity” the building didn’t go for sale when the new school was built.

“It’s a sight to see the way it was treated,” he says.

A Galway native, Tommy, along with the late Joe Maguire, carried out maintenance in Tullyveela school for many years after he moved to Corlough in 1972 with his late wife Mary Ann, who was originally from Corlough and a past pupil of Tullyveela.

Tommy, who was a plasterer, has “great memories” of working in the school, painting and repairing windows that had been broken by footballs, which was a “regular occurrence”.

“We surely enjoyed it,” he recalls.

Over the years, Tommy saw “a lot” of pupils going through Tullyveela, including all six of his own children.

Hughie McGovern, a past pupil of Tullyveela, would like to see the building being used for something community-based, like a Men’s Shed or a pre-school but he feels, if the building had “been made use of sooner,” there would have been greater potential to do so.

“At this point, to get the population back in, the best option would be to see a family here,” Hughie acknowledges.

“There’d be light on when you’re driving down the road,” adds Elizabeth, who would like to see a family move in.

Similarly, Fr Sean thinks that local people would be “delighted” to see the building being used after being abandoned for more than 14 years.

Depopulation

Over the years, Hughie has witnessed a significant level of depopulation in Corlough as families have died and people emigrated for work.

He recalls a story his grandfather used to tell of going to midnight mass, pre-rural electrification, when candles lit up every window.

“He used to say it looked like a town across the hills but there’s only five or six lights now,” Hughie said.

“The day that the school closed, it always stuck in my head,” he continues.

“Formal education stopped in Tullyveela and the sound stopped.”

Hughie’s family have had land around the school for generations, and he remembers the “lovely” sound of the children at school while working the land.

“You’d come up here and the kids would be screaming, playing football, fighting and crying. It was a lovely sound but it fell silent.”

For more information on the site of the old Tullyveela National School, please contact Eamonn Gaffney Auctioneers on 0877981938.