Old School to be function room UPDATED

A little bit of Kilcullen history gone bad is on its way to a new life, writes Brian Byrne.

The Old School won't be familiar to many, but it's the room where the first Boys National School in Kilcullen operated. Subsequent to the building of the new Boys School in 1925, it was used as an overflow schoolroom right up into the 1970s.

It later became a kind of community use hall, most latterly being the Scouts Den before they finally got their own modern premises. It then fell into a dereliction and a place which obviously became a hangout for anti-social behaviour.

As part of the work being carried out by Joe Fraser on The Hideout, the Old School will eventually become a function room. The old and unsafe roof came off yesterday, and the place will get cleaned up when a new one goes on.

Following publishing of the above piece, the Diary received the following:

I was fascinated by your pics and notes on the 'Old School', writes Gerry O'Donoghue. I began my teaching career in that room on July 1 1974. My first visitor that morning was the late Tommy Orford. He brought a photograph showing himself and his contemporaries as schoolboys. I am not sure if photocopiers exixted in 1974, but Kilcullen BNS certainly did not have one! How I wish I could see that photograph again.

My first students in that room are now in their forties. I was 19 years and two weeks old! How Kilcullen, the world and all of us have changed since those days.

UPDATE: There may not have been photocopiers around then, Gerry. But through the magic of the Internet and Picasa, Mary Orford has sent in a copy of that same photograph.