Local history: Christ Church school operated in county town for 74 years

By Tom Gillespie

THE site of the large, imposing Mayo Library headquarters in Castlebar was once an educational hub of a different kind for the Church of Ireland pupils in the local area.

I am old enough to remember Christ Church school which stood at the entrance to old Pavilion Road.

It adjoined the Castlebar Tennis Club courts and pavilion. There was a small shed at the side of the school where we as youngsters used to climb on to the flat roof to watch the tennis players in action.

Alan King, a staff member of the county library, researched the history of the school, which opened in 1894, and his findings were published in the 2017 Castlebar Parish Magazine.

It is 53 years since the building named Christ Church School - roll 14358 - closed, after being in operation for 74 years.

Alan said the site of the school was originally a pound - an area where impounded animals were kept. When landlords or their agents were unable to collect rents in cash from tenants, they took their animals instead and had them impounded until they were sold or reclaimed by their owners, with the relevant cash going to the landlord.

Beside the site was the stone-cutting workshop of Richard J. Staunton who lived in Newline and was the father of Annie - one of the first women in the county town to join Cumann na mBhan, the women’s republican organisation.

In October 1893, Rev. Canon William Taylor (1844 to 1904), the Rectory - now Dr. Dara Corcoran’s residence on Spencer Street, opposite the old County Cinema - sought tenders from building contractors in the area for the one-storey building of the new Church of Ireland school in the town. It was completed a year later by local contractor Richard Condon.

The school had an average attendance of 16 to 20 children and the first principal was Frederick Moore, originally from Knappagh, Westport. He spent 27 years with the school before leaving to take upon a similar position with a large school in Belfast.

During his time in Castlebar, he boarded with the family of solicitor Michael Joe Egan in Mountain View, and later with a family named Carpenter who resided in Ellison Street. Before Mr. Moore left, the brethren of the local Masonic Lodge made a presentation of appreciation of his work over the years at the school.

The Rector of nearby Christ Church, Canon Taylor, a native of Fermanagh, who did so much to establish the school, passed away in 1904, and a stained glass window in his church was dedicated to his memory a year later.

Between 1937 and 1938 children from all the primary schools in the country were enlisted to collect folklore from their parents, grandparents and elderly neighbours. This included oral history, folktales and legends, riddles, proverbs, games and pastimes.

In Christ Church school, the children who collected information were Thomas Carson and his sister Eva from Cloonty Lodge, Breaffy, Castlebar. Their teacher was a Miss Ni Mhaitiu.

Alan reminds readers that these and other local school collections can be viewed in Castlebar library.

The school closed for a short period in 1961 due to an outbreak of measles and in October 1964 for repairs. The pupils temporarily attended class in the nearby Church of Ireland parochial hall at the top of Castle Street on the Mall, the former headquarters of Castlebar Boxing Club.

The last principal was Ms. Eileen Carson from Cloonty Lodge, who attended the school herself as a child. She spent eight years with the school before it finally closed in June 1968.

Due to a gradual decrease in school enrolments, it, along with Knappagh National School, Westport, closed, and children from both attended Westport national school on the Newport Road - a two teacher school in which Ms. Carson took up duty as principal.

In 1971 the disused Castlebar Christ Church school was rebounded from Mayo Country Council for a period by St. Brid’s - a classroom for six children with special needs.

In 1983, it was used as a Gaelscoil by Scoil Raifteiri until 1989 when they moved to the old Fairgreen where their new school was erected.

The original Christ Church national school was demolished in 1989 and is now the magnificent Mayo Library headquarters, next to Castlebar Garda Station.

Around the time the school finally closed the rector in Castlebar was the late Rev. G.R. Vaughan, a true gentleman who endeared himself to the entire community and involved himself in the many activities and organisations. He administered to the Church of Ireland congregation but equally he gave of his time to the Catholic population.

He resided at The Curragh and was a regular visitor to comfort and console patients at Mayo County Hospital and brought happiness, almost on a daily basis, to those resident in the Sacred Heart Home.

Such was his popularity that Rev. Vaughan was a regular guest at all dinner dances - the 1970s, October to February, was the era of dinner dances - in either the Travellers Friend Hotel, Welcome Inn Hotel and Breaffy House Hotel, and at other civic and public occasions.