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Melview National School |
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History Melview National School first began as two seperate schools - a Male school and a Female school. These schools opened their doors on April 1st 1856. These two schools joined together in April 1917 and Melview became a mixed school. Michael Kilemade was the principal of this new school. He was succeeded by Mr. Twohig who was succeeded by Peader O'Donnell. Sean O'Donnell, a Donegal man, became principal in 1957, but returned to Donegal two years later. Pascal Quinn was appointed principal in 1959 and taught in Melview for 40 years until retiring in June 1998. In 1959, Melview was a three teacher school with 80 pupils on the roll. in the early sixties numbers dropped due to the lack of new houses being built in the area and an end to large families. Melview was reduced to a two teacher school and in 1964 there were 43 children on the roll. Permission was granted for a new school in 1965 and the new building was erected behind the old school. Conditions were so bad that teachers and pupils were forced to take refuge in the G.A.A. dressing rooms in Pearse Park from September '65 until May '66. The official opening of the new school was in December 1966. March 1967 saw further disruption as a boundary wall was built by local labour. The 1970-'s saw a rise in pupil numbers. The Department of Education erected two prefabs to cater for the increased numbers. Melview continued to grow in numbers and in 1979/80 the Department finally gave the go-ahead to build three new classrooms and a general purpose room. On completion the general purpose room was immediately turned into a classroom and the following year it was converted into two classrooms and still remains today. Lily Minnock took over the principalship from Pascal Quinn in 1998. |