placenamesMastergeehy
Máistir Gaoithe
The former school preserves an older centre of community life, while its pupils and church furnishings tell a story of continuity at nearby Cillín Liath.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Máistir Gaoithe · Irish · main form · validated name
- Mastergeehy · English · main form
Place & story
The surviving schoolhouse
Mastergeehy’s former national school is a modest nineteenth-century building with an unusually legible classroom interior. The National Inventory dates the existing structure to about 1880: five bays, one storey and a projecting entrance porch, built in rendered rubble stone. Its recorded fittings include sash windows, timber window reveals, wall benches and chimney breasts at either end of the classroom. A line in the floor and ceiling marks a former full-height partition. These details preserve the practical organisation of a small rural school. [2]
Teachers and amalgamation
The successor school’s history traces Mastergeehy’s school institution back to 1847, earlier than the date assigned to the surviving building. Paddy and Agnes Sugrue taught there, with Maureen Sugrue succeeding Agnes. When Kilmackerin School closed in 1969, its pupils transferred to Mastergeehy. Four years later Mastergeehy itself closed, joining Cashlagh and Cahersavane in the new school at Cillín Liath. That school opened on 1 September 1973 with 104 pupils, bringing together children from several smaller communities in the parish. [3]
A window carried forward
The movement of parish facilities continued with the opening of Our Lady of the Valley at Cillín Liath in 1990. The new church retained tangible connections with the older church at Mastergeehy: its stained-glass image of Our Lady, formerly above the altar, was transferred, together with altar rails placed behind the new altar. The parish records these reused fittings as links between the two churches, preserving material from the older place of worship within its successor. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Mastergeehy. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Mastergeehy National School, 21308901 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Stair na Scoile / School History · Scoil Náisiúnta Cillín Liath
- Churches: Our Lady of the Valley · Paróiste na Dromoda
- Stone bridge over the River Inny, near Mastergeehy illustration: based on a A fine bridge by Neville Goodman. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0; adapted illustration distributed under the same licence.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2017-02-07. How this page was prepared.