1950s – Meenaclady School, Co. Donegal

Fairly standard design from the Office of Public Works – a design in use from the 1930s through to the late 1950s – in this case a three classroom school. Usually overseen by Basil Boyd Barrett who joined the OPW in 1934 and whose special area of interest was school design. The designs usually had a central corridor with classrooms to one side and ancillary functions such as cloakrooms and toilets to the other. The standard design language of the schools, which ranged from two to eight classrooms, also frequently included a covered play area and a watertower. Local materials were occasionally used within the design framework. Usually symmetrical, the larger variants sometimes had a central front entrance in addition to the doorways at the ends of the central corridor spine. Rebuilt.