A school without pupils, a village enraged, a wall of silence
FOR one day only, she was the loneliest schoolgirl in Ireland – possibly the world. On the first day of the new school year, just one lonely sixth class pupil turned up for class at the 108year-old Bullsmouth National School, on Achill Island. At the start of term, parents – many of whom had attended the school themselves – staged a dramatic withdrawal of pupils from the school. Fifteeen students were enrolled in neighbouring schools. No reasons were given.
Intrigued, the Irish Mail on Sunday travelled west. We wanted to meet the schoolgirl, and talk about life as the only girl in the playground.
But by the second day of term, the 12-year-old girl had also been withdrawn from the school by her parents. Now, there’s nobody left.
At lunchtime, the only sound to crack the eerie silence around the small, lemon-painted schoolhouse is the creak of the metal gate. Inside, with no children to teach, sits Mrs Gallagher, the principal, another teacher and the school secretary.
Between Achill Sound and Keel, at the north of the island, a right turn off the main road at Bunnacurry takes visitors through the village of Dugort and inland, across lonely, bumpy roads criss-crossing turf-stacked bogs, peppered with clusters of homes and farmhouses making up a number of tiny villages and townlands.
Dooniver – like the rest of the Achill Island villages – is a wild, and beautiful place where drivers raise hand salutes as they pass along the winding bog roads.
On a damp afternoon like today, their sunny warmth is a balm to strangers like me driving the remote, lonely roads. But one mention of Bullsmouth National School in the village and the warm, sunny faces darken. ‘We won’t be getting involved in any of that,’ says an elderly man in a house next to the school, brusquely closing the door shut and turning on his heel.
In a home across the road, with a child’s bike and toys scattered around, I’m told there are no children in the house and am urged to move along. A father whose children used to walk the few metres to Bullsmouth National School but who now drives them to the Valley School says: ‘I won’t be making any comments about that.’
In Dooniver, there’s no pub, shop, church or post office. The closest pub was Mastersons in Dugort, but that closed earlier this year.
In the middle of the tiny village, perched up on an elevated site, flanked by a hilly field of sheep on one side and a small farmhouse on the other, sits Bullsmouth National School. For more than a century, it’s been the beating heart of this community.
In remote island villages in the west of Ireland, where mass emigration is constant and economic hardship is a given, the local school is often the jewel in the crown.
And in Dooniver – where generations of families learned to read and write in this 108-year-old schoolhouse – this jewel is shinier than most.
For evidence of the deep attachment locals feel towards their school, we need only look back to the May Bank Holiday weekend in 2010 and the biggest party in the village’s history, staged to mark the school’s centenary. For its 100-year bash – co-celebrated with Saula, another island school – hundreds of former students made the pilgrimage home to Dooniver, some travelling from America.
Driving the celebrations was the late Pat Conway, who steered Bullsmouth National School as principal for 41 years, until his retirement in 2013, when his daughter, Jacinta Gallagher, took over as principal. Mr Conway died suddenly in June, 2015.
In a lengthy obituary in the Mayo News, Mr Conway was described by local Cllr Paul McNamara as ‘what rural Ireland was all about – rural Ireland has lost one of its finest sons’.
Mr Conway was involved in everything – Dooniver/Askill Group Water Scheme, Achill Golf Club, where he was president and co-founded the Senior Society, the Achill branch of INTO, Comhar na nOileán and he was a lifelong Fianna Fáil party member.
But for the community, many of whom he taught, his legacy was the brilliant Bullsmouth School. He drove its centenary celebrations and brought decades of students home to Achill.
In the centenary magazine, its committee paid tribute to Mr Conway, describing him as a ‘community leader’ and ‘educator’ who devoted his life to developing the school.
So why, just eight years since the centenary celebrations, have all the pupils left, leaving the school doomed for closure?
There was no answer when the Irish Mail on Sunday called twice to the school and the doors appeared to be locked. School principal Ms Gallagher picked up the phone on another occasion and we have been told she, another teacher and the school secretary have been turning up for work every morning, despite there being no children to teach.
Most of the children started their new term at Valley National School, in Dugort, around two miles away. Last year, there were fears dwindling numbers would force the Valley school to close. But this year the roll has swelled from ten to 22 pupils, thanks to the arrivals from Bullsmouth.
In all, there are six national schools on the island, including Bullsmouth, and one secondary school. Achill has a population of 2,400.
At the Valley National School, a teacher at reception said: ‘We’ll be making no comment.’
Just after 9am on Friday morning, the country road leading to the small Valley school springs to life, as parents arrive to drop off children. But none of them will comment on the closure of Bullsmouth.
One mother takes photographs of my car and notes down my number-plate. That evening, there is a parents’ meeting at the Valley School but once again, I’m confronted with a wall of silence.
The exodus from Bullsmouth National School made national news but journalists asking why were met with a wall of silence – until now.
This week one parent broke their silence in an exclusive interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday.
‘Everyone is so angry and upset behind all of this but nobody will say anything – they are afraid to talk,’ said the parent, who wishes to remain anonymous. ‘We’ve been compared to a cult – there are a lot of family and relations in the village – but we just couldn’t leave our children there any longer as we worried for their education and it just wasn’t fair.’
The first official sign all was not well at the school came with the publication of the critical Whole School Evaluation Report by the Department of Education in December last year – and the parent confirmed relations between parents, the principal and the board have deteriorated since then.
In the report, inspectors criticised the school’s principal, noting she ‘demonstrates a low level of understanding of the requirements of her role’. It reported ‘some of the main functions of the principal are poorly executed’ and that ‘school records are maintained in an unsatisfactory manner and some essential areas of school development have not progressed.’
It said: ‘Steps should be taken to ensure that the principal’s management and leadership roles are fulfilled more effectively, particularly in relationship to leadership of learning.’
The report also concluded that ‘the quality of in-school management and of leadership for learning is weak’.
Inspectors recommended the board of management ‘needs to become better informed about its role and functions, and to ensure it is meeting all requirements satisfactorily’.
As a Gaeltacht school, its standards in Irish were also scrutinised, with inspectors noting no standardised test results for Irish were available for any of the middle or senior classes and recommended support ‘to improve outcomes for pupils in Irish’.
In response, the board of management noted that the principal has agreed to engage in ‘further professional development’.
This week neither the board nor the principal would comment on the issues. But one angry parent decided to break the silence.
‘People feel so bad but won’t vent, mainly out of respect for the late Principal Pat Conway, who built up such a wonderful, lovely school. Even at
‘People feel so bad, but won’t vent out of respect for the late principal’
‘We couldn’t leave our children there for any longer. It wasn’t fair’
meetings, we were afraid to write anything down as then it would be there forever and as so many of the parents are relations or neighbours, everyone is staying silent out of respect for the family and Pat Conway, who was just an absolutely lovely man and a saint and a brilliant teacher.’
The parent added: ‘It went completely downhill since Pat retired’ and claimed parents warned the principal and the school board in Easter that if drastic action to improve the school was not taken, there would be no children coming back in September.’
Neither the board nor the principal would comment on this claim. The parent also claimed the ructions since the inspectors’ report last December, had caused the board to fall into disarray, and that there were two resignations by a community and a parent representative earlier this year.
‘We felt completely powerless as nobody would listen to us. We told them at a meeting if there weren’t changes, there’d be no students coming back in September but nothing was done. We had no choice although it breaks our hearts. Some newspapers said it was down to the standards in Irish but it was nothing to do with the Irish.
‘The inspector said it in the report and we wanted things to change and they didn’t. Everyone ignored us and the damage is done now.’ It’s not just a school the community faces losing, but a vital centre.
‘At Christmas we’d light up the tree and the old folks would come and we’d sing Christmas carols there. The community centre is attached to the school and anything that happened in the school, the community came and it was so lovely. The women’s group met there, the whist card drive. Some people have a pub or a hall and that’s all we had in the village.’
A Department of Education spokesman said the department was in ongoing contact with the school authorities and the school patron in relation to the issues arising from the 2017 evaluation report and including its future viability.
She said: ‘The decision-making authority for a school closure rests with the patron of a school, and this is subject to the agreement of the department.
‘Any proposal to close a school must involve consultation with all of the relevant stakeholders, parents, teachers, students and local communities and follow decisions taken at local level.’
School patron and Archbishop of Tuam Dr Michael Neary, is away and unavailable for comment.
Fr John O’Boyle, the diocesan educational secretary, said: ‘I would be familiar with the reports as they would come to us.’
He said: ‘These situations are always sensitive and a local community will be very sensitive about those things.
‘Yes, I imagine if there are no pupils it will shut as there’s not much point in a school remaining open with no pupils.
‘Parents have a right to send their parents to whatever school they wish to and that’s their prerogative. The parents took their own decisions.’
He added: ‘It’s sad and a great pity but you have to take a reality check too that the population in the area has dropped.
‘There are a lot of schools struggling for numbers. Emigration and all that plays a big part in the numbers dropping.’
The MoS spoke to school principal Ms Gallagher and emailed her a series of questions.
However, at the time of publication she had not responded. Nor had there been a response from the school board.