Photo: Mac McCarron · CC BY-SA 2.0Every school in and around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh teaches through Irish
Around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh, 100% of schools teach through Irish, above both Co. Cork’s towns (9%) and Irish towns (8%). Its one secondary school within 3 km, Scoil Mhuire, has 109 pupils. With no school results published in Ireland, and the Education Act 1998 restricting comparisons of them, these schools are described, not graded or ranked.
Counted from the Department of Education’s 2025/26 lists: every school in the town or within 3 km of it, against every school in Ireland.
What stands out about Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s schools
Taught through Irish
Every school here is in the Gaeltacht and teaches through Irish; across Ireland, 8% of schools teach only through it. They are Scoil Mhuire (109) and Scoil Fionnbarra (98). Language ↓
Drawn from the Department of Education’s lists; none of it judges how well a school teaches.
Teaching through Irish in and around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
How many schools teach through each language; the tick marks Ireland’s share.
2 of Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s 2 schools teach every subject through Irish, 2 of them in the Gaeltacht: Scoil Mhuire and Scoil Fionnbarra.
The 2 schools in and around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
Every school in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh or within 3 km of its outline, each linked to its own page. These schools carry no letter or result: Ireland doesn’t release them school by school.
Where the 2 schools in and around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh are
Each school where the official list places it, shaded by who runs it and sized by pupils; squares are secondary schools, triangles special schools. The dashed shape is Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s outline; schools within 3 km of it count.
Places from the Department of Education’s school lists (its own coordinates for all but a handful); map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Who Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s schools serve
The pupils at the area’s schools by share, beside Co. Cork’s and Ireland’s, 2025/26
Each bar is the area’s share; the tick marks Ireland’s.
DEIS by stage: pupils at DEIS schools
| Share of pupils | Around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh | Co. Cork | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 0% | 18% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 100% | 8% | 6% |
| Girls | 47% | 49% | 49% |
Around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh, 0% of pupils attend a school in DEIS; across Ireland it is 27%, and 18% in Co. Cork. The biggest difference from Ireland is in pupils at all-Irish schools: 100% here, 6% there.
Each of the 2 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scoil MhuirePost-primary · ETB | 109 | 52% | ✓ | |
| Scoil FionnbarraPrimary | 98 | 41% | ✓ |
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary): enrolments by sex and the DEIS list. Shares are of pupils, not of schools; a county’s are the schools listed with its towns.
Who runs Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s schools
Who runs each school, as listed for 2025/26; the bars give the share of schools of each kind.
1 of Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s 2 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Cork ETB (1) and Bishop of Cork & Ross (1). None of the 2 is in DEIS, the extra support for schools in disadvantaged areas (30% across Ireland).
Department of Education school lists: ethos 2025/26, patron 2024/25 (the 2025/26 lists don’t give it). DEIS list 2025/26.
How children get a place in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
Starting primary school
Children can start primary school once they are four, and must be in school by six. Families apply to each school directly. Every school publishes an admission policy and a yearly admission notice; a school with more applicants than places admits on the criteria in its policy. Since the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018, a Catholic or other majority-faith primary school can’t put baptised children first; a school of a minority faith still can, to keep its ethos.
Moving to secondary school
Children move to post-primary school at about twelve, after sixth class. Again, families apply to each school, usually a year or more ahead, and an oversubscribed school admits on its published criteria, often brothers and sisters and its feeder primary schools.
Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018; each school’s admission policy and notice are on its own website.
Which schools are growing
Of these 2 schools, 2 have grown by at least 5% since 2019/20 and 0 have lost as much; Ireland’s pupils changed by +5%.
Department of Education enrolments at 30 September, 2019/20 and 2025/26 (preliminary). No capacity is published, so how full a school is can’t be shown.
Inspection reports for Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh’s schools
The Inspectorate’s published reports for each school, linked, without ratings
Each school is visited by inspectors from time to time, for a whole-school evaluation of teaching, learning and leadership, for one subject, or to follow up earlier advice, and every report is posted on gov.ie with the school’s response.
The reports describe what inspectors saw and what each school should do next. They give no overall grade, so none is shown here; the 2 schools below each link their own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Scoil MhuirePost-primary · ETB | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil FionnbarraPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
Every post-primary school within 10 km of the town; families choose and apply to each, at about twelve
The only post-primary school within 10 km of Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh is Scoil Mhuire, an ETB school. It takes girls and boys. Just one teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scoil MhuireETB · Multi-denominational | Girls and boys | Gaeltacht school | 109 | 0.3 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh beside the 128 other Irish towns of 200 to 300 people
Towns of a similar size, with the schools in or within 3 km of each; ordered by population, never ranked
| Town | People | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gneevgullia | 300 | 1 | 131 | 0 | 0% | 4.8 km |
| … | ||||||
| Donard | 238 | 2 | 213 | 0 | 0% | 6.6 km |
| Kilbrittain | 238 | 1 | 211 | 0 | 0% | 7.9 km |
| Keshcarrigan | 238 | 1 | 142 | 0 | 100% | 7.4 km |
| Brannockstown | 235 | 1 | 83 | 0 | 0% | 4.1 km |
| Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh | 235 | 2 | 207 | 2 | 0% | 0.3 km |
| Easky | 235 | 2 | 287 | 0 | 100% | 0.5 km |
| Mountcollins | 234 | 3 | 145 | 0 | 67% | 9.2 km |
| Lemybrien | 234 | 1 | 102 | 0 | 100% | 7.9 km |
| Cill Rónáin | 234 | 2 | 95 | 2 | 50% | 0.3 km |
| … | ||||||
| Lahardane | 200 | 1 | 76 | 0 | 0% | 7.1 km |
Of these 128 other towns, 35 count more pupils at their schools than Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh. An all-Irish school is within 3 km of 7 of the 129.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
Pupils every September at the schools in or within 3 km of the town, each counted at today’s site.
The schools in and around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh had 201 pupils in 2015/16 and 207 in 2025/26.
Pupils at schools in and around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
Department of Education enrolments at 30 September each year, 2015/16 to 2025/26 (preliminary), for every school placed in the area today; schools that have since closed or merged count where they stood.
Schools in the towns around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
Each town’s schools in or within 3 km of its outline; distances as the crow flies.
Since 2019/20 the pupils around Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh changed by +13%; among its neighbours, Macroom’s grew most (+18%) and Dunmanway’s least (+15%).
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh or within 3 km of its outline, as the Department places it: families here use them. Schools further out are on the map of each school’s own page.
- The kinds of school. Primary schools take children from junior infants to sixth class, about ages 4 to 12. Post-primary schools teach the Junior and Leaving Certificate, about ages 12 to 18: voluntary secondary schools (mostly with a religious patron), ETB schools and community colleges run by an Education and Training Board, and community and comprehensive schools. Special schools teach children with particular needs.
- Teaching through Irish. All-Irish: every subject taught through Irish, in the Gaeltacht or, outside it, a Gaelscoil or Gaelcholáiste. Partly in Irish: an Irish stream (some classes entirely through Irish) or some subjects through Irish. Every other school teaches Irish as a subject.
- DEIS. DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) gives schools serving disadvantaged areas more teachers, money and support; the Department decides which schools are in it.
- Ethos and patron. Most Irish schools are owned by a patron, mostly a church; the patron sets the school’s ethos. Multi-denominational schools (Educate Together, many ETB schools) teach children of every faith and none together.
- No grade. Section 53 of the Education Act 1998 lets the Minister refuse to release information that would allow schools’ exam results to be compared, and no results are published school by school. So Ireland’s schools have no letters and its towns no School Grade; nothing on this page ranks them.
- What isn’t here. What the UK and French pages show from results, these can’t: results charts, results against pupils’ backgrounds and towns ranked by their schools (no published results), and how full each school is (no capacity is published). Every post-primary school teaches to the Leaving Certificate, so there is no sixth-form split to show.
- Inspections. The Inspectorate’s reports are linked from each school’s page. They give no overall grade, so none is shown.
- The year. The 2025/26 lists are the Department’s preliminary release; numbers can change a little in the final lists.
Questions about schools in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
How many schools are there in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh?
In Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh or within 3 km of it: 1 primary school and 1 secondary school, with 207 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh that teach through Irish?
Yes, 2: Scoil Mhuire and Scoil Fionnbarra teach every subject through Irish.
Are there fee-paying secondary schools near Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh?
We don’t say. Ireland publishes no exam results school by school, and section 53 of the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing them; a ranking would rest on guesses. Each school’s page has its own facts and a link to its inspection reports, and visiting the schools you are weighing is still the best guide.
How do I get a place at a school in Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh?
Apply to each school directly: every school publishes an admission policy and a yearly admission notice with its dates. If it has more applicants than places, it admits on the criteria in its policy.
Sources: Department of Education, school lists 2025/26 (preliminary) and enrolments since 2015/16, CC BY 4.0 · one school placed with OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL). Under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
Contains Central Statistics Office (CSO) data, Census 2022, and Tailte Éireann boundaries (CSO Urban Areas, Small Areas, local electoral areas, constituencies), under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).