‘Sad day’ for Doaghbeg after National School closure after 174 years

Doaghbeg National School’s closure in June 2025 after 174 years of education provision was described as “a sad day” as locals become accustomed to a new era. 

The school, which was in the Fanad Peninsula and was set up in 1851, suffered the fate of many a rural school and has had to close its doors due to a lack of students. 

Coming into the 2024-25 academic year, it was listed on the Department of Education’s website that the school was educating seven children.

A source told Donegal Live: “There’s really not that much to say about it. It was a natural closure as the four remaining students are headed for secondary school and, like a lot of small rural communities, there are no numbers of youngsters to keep a school going.” 

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Although the Doaghbeg National School has been in existence since 1851, the school has been using its current building since 1912. Extensions have been added to the building in the years since.

Closure of Doaghbeg National School has been an ongoing threat for several decades, due to emigration issues. More than 100 people successfully protested a proposed closure of the school in 2003, after it had been reduced to seven pupils, and as of April 2020, nine students were studying at Doaghbeg.  

Many Doaghbeg natives would have been taught by Annie McConigley, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 105, and Katty Martin, who was appointed as the school teacher at Doaghbeg National School in 1957 and worked there until her retirement in 1995. 

Ballinacrick’s Kathleen McConigley then became Doaghbeg’s school teacher after Katty Martin, and she was replaced by Kerrykeel’s Aideen McGettigan following her retirement.