placenamesPeterswell
Tobar Pheadair
The school’s own history follows the move from a village classroom to a new building on the Gort–Loughrea road.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Tobar Pheadair · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Peterswell · English · main form
Place & story
The village school
Peterswell’s national school opened in 1848 after a building-grant application made by parish priest Father O’Connor in 1845. The single-storey school had a small entrance porch and two teaching rooms. Infants and first class occupied the smaller room; in the larger one, two teachers worked at opposite ends, an arrangement remembered in the school history as distracting. [2]
Moving to the main road
A new three-room school opened on the Gort–Loughrea road on 4 March 1946 and was blessed by Bishop Browne of Galway. The state met eight ninths of the building cost, with the remainder raised locally. Peterswell and Re Ramhar national schools amalgamated in 1967, bringing pupils and staff together at St Thomas’s. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Peterswell. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- History of Peterswell National School · St Thomas’s National School, Peterswell
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.