St. Patrick’s school opened in 1870 & was originally housed in the Sexton’s Lodge & Parish Hall. Up to the late 1990’s, the hall was still used to accommodate two of the classrooms with the other two classrooms located in a separate pre-fabricated building and a small flat-roofed extension to the hall provided to house offices and toilets. Funding was obtained from the Department of Education in 1997 for a new 4-classroom school building.

A particular requirement of the brief was a wish to combine the new school building with a new parish centre and to provide a physical link from the church to the parish centre.  The new 2-storey building is located on the site of the previous extension to the hall and the pre-fabricated classroom building. The design solution uses the topography of the site & elevated position of the church to provide the link between it & the parish centre by means of a glazed-corridor bridge connection to the first floor of the new building, whilst maintaining the existing pedestrian route across the church & school grounds  through an arched passageway below the bridge at ground level. The design of the new building and materials used respects the context in which it is set, with the building having steep pitched slated roofs, ‘split-faced’ concrete block walls with reconstituted stone door and window surrounds and natural granite retaining walls to provide a contemporary building which complements the 19^th century church and hall buildings, both protected structures, to which it is connected. In conjunction with the new building, the hall was renovated as a multi-purpose space for use by both school and parish.