History

The history of primary education in Longwood spans a whole range of forms and settings over its history. Years and dates can vary depending on the source the further back you go. Before the thoughts of a "St. Nicholas' Primary School" existed, the village had a national school. The following is a snippet from the Longwood Killyon magazine, which was an annual release in the locality at one time:

This is how the school looked before refurbishment and its reopening in 1998.

Due to its age and condition at the time, Longwood NS needed a complete refurbishment in 1997.
When it reopened in 1998, it consisted of 95 pupils and 4 teachers.

In 2008, the school embarked on another phase of development and a 12 classroom school was built on a green field site on the Enfield Road. It was needed to facilitate the rapid development of a once sleepy village!

The old school last operated as a Primary School on Tuesday, June 9th 2009.

Months into the first year of St. Nicholas' in operation, Mr. John Ennis retired and handed over the keys to Mr. John Smyth, who took on the reins as principal.

An extension consisting of 4 classrooms and 2 support rooms was added to the new school in 2015/2016 and opened for use in September 2016.

Since John Smyth's retirement in 2019, the school has been presided over by Ms. Siobhán Henry, as the school goes from strength to strength in providing for the community of Longwood.

Longwood School History Documentary

The following is a short video created by previous students of St. Nicholas' Primary School on the history of primary education in Longwood. It was produced by Mr. Regan and couldn't have been done without the help of others, such as Val Foran, Ann Abbott and Brona Burke.

Below, you will find various material that was collected during the process of making the above video.