School: St Columba's, Cloonagh, Granard (roll number 12813)
- Location:
- Cloonagh, Co. Longford
- Teacher: Peter O'Reilly
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0762, Page 303
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- The present Church in Mulinalacta dedicated to St Columba was erected in 1832 by Fr McGaver and he is buried under the floor of the sanctuary.
It is divided internally into a nave and two aisles
The wall separating the western aisle from the nave has beautiful semi circular arches above and below and the wall in the eastern aisle has semi circular arches under but none on top. Fr McGaver intended to have a gallery over this aisle to serve as a school and he had a door in the side to admit the pupils. He was to erect a stone stairs to this door outside but the Commissioners objected to have a school in the Church and the door was closed but the shape of the door in the wall is visible still.
Lord Southwell the landlord though not a Catholic gave 40 guineas to the Building Fund and that amount paid the contractor Mr Kelly of Longford for erecting the walls.
Lord Southwell also gave a farm of land free of rent as a residence for the priest.
The parishioners supplied the lime free and it was announced one Sunday that there would be a prize of £1 given to the person who would bring the best lime. So when the people went home from Mass they started to fill their lime kilns and before night the whole country side was a mass of smoke from burning lime kilns. I always heard that it was a party named Reynolds from Drummocrir brought the(continues on next page)
