The Church of Ireland
Diocesan Press Release

The Minister for Education, Dr Michael Woods, will officially open  a large extension to Castleknock Church of Ireland National School, Main Street, Castleknock, on Friday, 14 September, 2001, at 4.30 pm. The extension will be dedicated by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Walton Empey. The opening ceremony will take place following a short service in the playground attended by the school’s 150 pupils, staff, parents and members of the Board of Management.

The five-teacher school has been refurbished and extended at a cost of  £¾ million. Four new classrooms with cloakrooms ensuite have been built. Other additions include a computer room, a  general purposes room, a room for the learning resources teacher, an office for the principal and store rooms. The Principal, Ms Lorna Beattie says, “This is a dream come true. We have waited so long. The numbers have been rising since the 1970s and now at last in 2001 we have a  really great facility. Unfortunately we are still using a “pre-fab” classroom as the numbers continued to rise during the planning and the building stages. We hope that this will be only for a short time.”

There is a long history of commitment to education in Castleknock  Parish. The first school on the site was built in 1720 and became part of the National School system in 1880. In 1961 it was replaced by a modern 2-teacher school. With the expansion of West Dublin this had to be extended in the early 1970s and again in 1988 by the addition of 2 “pre-fab” classrooms.

The school caters mainly for Church of Ireland and Protestant children in North-West Dublin and East Meath.