St. Michael’s & St. Patrick’s N.S. is located in the town land of Clegna on the Cootehall-Knockvicar road in the parish of Ardcarne. The school is in a rural locality and is close to the picturesque village of Cootehall. From the school one has views of the Boyle River and the Arigna Mountains in the distance.
The school was officially opened in 1980 after the amalgamation of three local schools, Hollymount N.S., Cootehall N.S. and Knockvicar N.S.
Presently there are 134 students enrolled in our school. There are eight permanent members on the teaching staff this year.
They are:
Cian Duffy (Principal) – 5th and 6th Class
Catherine Martin- (Deputy Principal) – Special Education Teacher
Deirdre Martin – Junior Infants
Laura Conroy/Deirdre Brennan (Jobsharers) – Senior Infants & 1st Class
Lochlainn Conboy -1st and 2nd Class
Arlene Gilhooly – Special Education Teacher
Tanya Tansey -3rd & 4th Class
As well as this we also have two Special Need Assistants (S.N.A.)
Pauline Dwyer and Joan Tiernan
Our Secretary is Helena Gilhooly and our Caretaker and Cleaner are Sean Higgins and Martina Fryer.
The school has seen a number of changes since it was build in 1979. The school has six classrooms and a multi purpose room, five of these rooms are currently used by classroom teachers. The Multi purpose room is used as an S.E.T. room and the final classroom has been used as a playschool since 1996.
We are fortunate to have such a large area for our school grounds. The school garden was established in 2002. We have painted games in our school yard last year. We have improved our sports fields in a major redevelopment. The field has been properly drained, levelled and reseeded. The school playground was installed over the Summer Holidays in 2009. There was also fencing put around the playground. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese visited our school on 2nd February 2010 to officially open our new school playground.
We also had visits from the American Ambassador to Ireland James C. Kenny and the American Deputy Chief of Mission’s Robert Faucher. Ambassador Kenny issued a return invite to his Residence in the Phoenix Park and the senior students, teachers and parents took up his invite in June 2006.
St. Michael’s & St. Patrick’s N.S. is a rural school which has successfully married the rural atmosphere and culture with a modern day and progressive outlook. We strive to ensure that all our students are provided with an all round education where both academic and social development is of equal importance.
Tin Whistle:
Padraig Sweeney comes to the school to give tin whistle lessons to the students from 1st to 6th class every year.
Previous teachers in St. Michael’s & St. Patrick’s N.S. include:
Michael Shivnan 1980-1994 (Principal)
Dympna O’Regan 1980-1995
Kathleen Oates 1980-1996
Kathleen Shivnan 1980-1994
Maura Doherty 1980-2004
John Francis McLoughlin 1994-2004
Ann Gilcreest 1996-1999
Evelyn McDermott 1999-2000
Denise King 2000-2002
Catherine Martin 1994-to date (On secondment to SDPS)
Eithne Burke 2000-2003
Mary Gallagher 2000-2005
Marie Keaveney 2005-2010
Sinead Tiernan 2010-2011
Mary Carty 1997- 2016
Maura Tansey 2016-2017
Cliona McLoughlin 2016 -2107
Leann Walsh 2017-2018
Aisling McMahon 2017-2018
Sarah Kilkenny 2018-2019
Ann Marie O Neill 2018-2019
Deirdre Brennan 2019-2020