Recently, much to my satisfaction, I stumbled on an article on this Banagher school written by Michael Quane and published in the North Munster Antiquarian Journal, vol. x, no. 2, 1967. The journal also contained a photograph of Cuba house before it was demolished. Quane has written about many schools around the country in what are always well researched articles using mostly parliamentary reports of the nineteenth century. His article on the Banagher school is no exception. Here he sets out in detail the origins, growth and decline of the school.

Founded in 1629

The borough of Banagher was founded in 1629 by charter of Charles 1. This was a privilege which only one other Offaly town shared, Daingean. Both towns were allowed to sent representatives to parliament and had certain other privileges. In the case of Banagher, the charter made provision for the founding of a free school and a land grant was made on behalf of the townlands of Boolinarig (Ordance Survey, Offaly sheet 31). But according to Quane no school was founded at Banagher till 1806.

It seems that in the intervening period, the rents of the school lands were appropriated as a perquisite of office by successive incumbents of the parish of Rynagh. In 1800 the rental of the school land was £150 a year. Following a report of the missioners of Education the incumbent was dispossessed and a school opened in 1806 with the Rev. Thomas Morris as its first master.

Morris acquired two large houses adjoining each other in Banagher as his school. In July 1807 he had 32 pupils, 17 boarders and 15 day pupils. Board and tuition cost 35 guineas and subjects included classics, logic, Euclid and so on. Morris, having received notice to quit the houses in Banagher town moved to Cuba house. The house was leased to the Army Medical board by Denis Bowes Daly a leading member of the Banagher gentry. It was leased to the school in 1818 with a covenant for perpetual renewal at a rent of £113.12s. A loan from the Consolidated Fund of £298.18.9 was spent on repairs. The rent from the school lands was now £251 a year. 1821 Morris sold the headmastership to the Rev. Dr. Alan Bell.

Free pupils

Soon after Bell became headmaster complaints were made by the residents of Banagher town that there were no free pupils in what was supposed to be a free school. The school was in fact catering for the middle classes. But Quane says the Banagher residents had an exaggerated idea of what the income of the school was. In the event the school had five free pupils in 1836. The school seems to have been in decline from about the 1830s. In 1832 external repairs were carried out at the school which left the master with a smaller balance at his disposal. Also the number of pupils were declining. In 1836 it was 20 puls. The school did not escape cholera and typhus which afflicted both master and pupils. The house suffered in the Big Wind of 1839 and in the same year Dr. Bell died. The new master, James Fahie, appointed after two others had refused the post found the school ‘uninhabitable and in a bad state’. He tried to increase the number of pupils but few would stay more than one year. Fahie died in 1843. New masters were appointed in 1844 and in 1848 but the position of the school did not improve According to the visitors its dilapidated state was in keeping with the town of Banagher. The master sought to have the endowment transferred to Birr or Ballinasloe but failed. Banagher was a declining town. According to the census of 1851 it was 1,192 and in 1901was 233. The Master dismissed the boys in 1865 and the school closed. But he continued to draw his salary. A leading article in the ‘Irish Times’ in December 1866 on the state of the school led to the master’s resignation.

A new master was appointed in 1868 had 12 boys. He was found to be frequently drunk, however, and after complaints to the Commissioners of Education a visitation of the school was order. Before it came about the master resigned.

Catholic Master

For the first time in school’s history, a Catholic, Patrick King Joyce, was appointed to the post of master in 1874. He had 40 pupils many of whom were Catholic boys from Banagher. He prepared some of the boys for Queen’s college, Galway but in doing so incured the disapproval of the bishop. Most of the Catholic boys removed to Birr. In 1879 the school had 7 pupils.

J.P. Mahaffy, afterwards Provost of trinity college, visited the school in 1881 and reported to the Commissioners: ‘The school is a complete failure…the buildings were dirty and decayed… But if the school were removed but a few miles to Parsontown – a town of similar character to Armagh and always the residence of the gentry – it would, doubtless, become a large school.’

The circumstances surrounding the final demise of the school are extremely interesting. It is regrettable that Quane did not tell us more. According to Quane, Joyce the headmaster, secured election as a poor law guardian for the electoral division of Doon. His election was unwelcome to Lord Rosse and other members of the King’s County Constitutional Association. Attempts to have his election declared invalid, failed.

When these failed the Commissioners of Education who saw eye to eye with the Assocation came to its aid by reopening with the British Treasury the question of the repayment from the funds of the school of the balance outstanding of the loan from the Consolidated Fund advanced in 1818 for necessary repairs to the school buildings’.

This loan should have been discharged long before 1884. In any case Joyce had derived no benefit from it. The master, being unable to pay, had to surrender possession of the school house after a public auction of the contents in June 1890.

Quane does not provide evidence of the link between the King’s County Constitutional Association and the Commissioners of Education. Nineteenth century King’s County politics would be well worth a study. In the meantime Banagher and everyone interested in Offaly history must be grateful to Quane for what he has done.