THE SCHOOL
Before the
old Court school was built in 1887 (under the curacy of Fr.Kinsella and
first opened on January 1888) there had been a Catholic National school
serving Monamaolin for over 50 years. Samuel Lewis' "Topographical
Dictionary of Ireland" was published in 1837 and in it he says that
thirty children attended the parochial school. "The Master had a house
and an acre of land rent free."
Griffith's
General Valuation of Rateable Property in Ireland was published in 1853
and he clearly places a National School in Ballinvalley on land owned by
a Rev. James Sinnott. Interestingly the school is classed as a "house"
for the purpose of rates and it had a rateable value of £1 per annum but
as a school was exempt.
Today
over seventy-five children attend the present school, St. John's
National School, Court,
(http://www.courtns.net)
which was opened in 1968 and extended in the early 1990s. It has four
full time teachers, a visiting Learning Support Teacher and a secretary.
