placenamesKilmore
An Chill Mhór
School records connect Kilmore with neighbouring communities, tracing the change from separate parish classrooms to Scoil Réalt na Mara.
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
- An Chill Mhór · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Kilmore · English · main form
Place & story
Education supported by local fundraising
Samuel Lewis’s account of Kilmore in 1837 records two schools associated with the new national education board. Their principal support came from an annual charity sermon and a public dinner. He also mentions a recently erected parochial schoolhouse. These arrangements belong to the historical parish, whose Catholic union included Mulrankin, Tomhaggard and Kilturk; they describe a wider educational catchment rather than the boundaries of the present district. [2]
Paths to the older classrooms
The school’s own history dates Kilturk’s two-room school to 1859 and records its construction with local funds. Children reached it along paths through the farmland, including routes from the Bank of Ballygrangans and from Grange by the Heps of Crosses. The account notes pupils entering their final school year after their fifteenth birthday, a reminder of how long national school could remain their principal formal education. [3]
The amalgamation of 1973
Scoil Réalt na Mara opened on 1 February 1973 with nine staff, bringing together pupils from Kilmore, Tomhaggard, Kilturk and Chapel Gardens. The new school thus joined communities previously served by separate buildings. An enlargement followed in 1978; a further extension and sports hall were built in 2013. This chronology links the village school to the surrounding parish without treating all those earlier school sites as part of one settlement. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kilmore. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kilmore, Bargy: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- School History · Scoil Réalt na Mara, Kilmore
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.