Today the dog woke up bright and early and as it was a bank holiday here in Ireland we headed off for a long walk. We walked up to Cappagh School House which is located in Coolaney, Co. Sligo. The school was built in 1868 and cost £300.

I couldn’t find an awful lot of information about it on the internet but did find some on Michael Farry’s book Killoran which has quite a lot of info about Coolaney. It’s hard to believe that this one room had 144 children enrolled, although usually only around 44 turned up as school wasn’t compulsory.

The school really is in a rural setting and I can only imagine the hardship that the children and teacher faced getting to school everyday.

There was an outside building which contained two smaller rooms, I can only imagine these were toilets.

We saw the skull of a sheep in grounds. It kind of adds to the whole history of the place, once a busy bustling building, now decaying and silent.

It was a lovely walk. For once I didn’t fall over although I did get my backside caught on some barbed wire! It’s OK though I’m well padded