Photo: Ian Watson · CC0Most post-primaries around Skibbereen take girls and boys: 0% are single-sex, below Co. Cork’s towns and Irish towns
For Skibbereen, that is below both Co. Cork’s towns (44%) and Irish towns (39%). Its one secondary school within 3 km, Skibbereen Community School, has 956 pupils. These schools are described rather than graded, because Ireland publishes no school results and the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing them.
Schools in the town or within 3 km of its outline, Department of Education lists for 2025/26; the Ireland figures cover all schools listed.
What stands out about Skibbereen’s schools
More all-Irish schools than most places
Families here have more choice of a school that teaches every subject through Irish than in most of Ireland, where 8% of schools do. The school is Gaelscoil Dr M Ui Shuilleabhain (78). Language ↓
Facts from the Department of Education’s lists; nothing here judges how well a school teaches.
Teaching through Irish in and around Skibbereen
The schools by teaching language, with Ireland’s share as the black tick.
1 of Skibbereen’s 5 schools teach every subject through Irish: Gaelscoil Dr M Ui Shuilleabhain.
The 5 schools in and around Skibbereen
Every school in Skibbereen or within 3 km of its outline, each linked to its own page. No school here carries a letter or a result: Ireland publishes neither for individual schools.
Where the 5 schools in and around Skibbereen 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 Skibbereen’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 Skibbereen’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 Skibbereen | Co. Cork | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 0% | 18% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 5% | 8% | 6% |
| Girls | 49% | 49% | 49% |
DEIS schools teach 0% of the pupils around Skibbereen, a smaller share than Ireland’s 27% (Co. Cork: 18%).
Each of the 5 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skibbereen Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | 956 | 48% | ||
| St Patrick's Boys' National SchoolPrimary | 204 | 1% | ||
| Scoil Naomh SeosamhPrimary | 182 | 99% | ||
| Gaelscoil Dr M Ui ShuilleabhainPrimary | 78 | 53% | ✓ | |
| Abbeystrewry N.S.Primary | 142 | 58% |
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 Skibbereen’s schools
Who runs each school, as listed for 2025/26; the bars give the share of schools of each kind.
3 of Skibbereen’s 5 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Bishop of Cork & Ross (2), Cork ETB & Bishop of Cork and Ross (1) and An Foras Pátrúnachta (1). None of the 5 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.
The 4 patrons of Skibbereen’s schools
Patrons own the schools and set their ethos; boards of management run them day to day.
Of the 5 schools around Skibbereen, 2 have Bishop of Cork & Ross as patron, teaching 25% of the pupils; 4 patrons in all. An Education and Training Board runs one of them.
| Patron | Ethos | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop of Cork & RossSt Patrick's Boys', Scoil Naomh Seosamh | Catholic | 2 | 386 |
| Cork ETB & Bishop of Cork and RossSkibbereen | Inter-denominational | 1 | 956 |
| Bishop of Cork, Cloyne & Ross COIAbbeystrewry | Church of Ireland | 1 | 142 |
| An Foras PátrúnachtaGaelscoil Dr M Ui Shuilleabhain | Catholic | 1 | 78 |
Department of Education school lists: patron 2024/25, ethos 2025/26.
How children get a place in Skibbereen
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
2 schools here have grown by 5% or more since 2019/20, 2 have shrunk by as much, out of 5; across Ireland: +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 Skibbereen’s schools
The Department of Education’s Inspectorate: every school’s reports linked, none rated
Reports come from whole-school evaluations (teaching, learning, leadership and management), subject inspections and follow-through visits that check earlier advice; gov.ie publishes each one with the school’s response.
Reports say what inspectors found and what should improve, without an overall grade, so none appears here; each of the 5 schools below links its own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Skibbereen Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | Inspection reports ↗ |
| St Patrick's Boys' National SchoolPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil Naomh SeosamhPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Gaelscoil Dr M Ui ShuilleabhainPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Abbeystrewry N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Skibbereen
All post-primaries within 10 km; at about twelve, families choose and apply school by school
The only post-primary school within 10 km of Skibbereen is Skibbereen Community School, a community school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skibbereen Community SchoolCommunity school · Inter-denominational | Girls and boys | – | 956 | 0.8 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Skibbereen
No special school is in or near Skibbereen. 3 of the 4 primary schools have special classes for children who need more support. Their cards ↑
Special schools and primary schools with special classes as the Department lists them; the National Council for Special Education places pupils in special classes.
Skibbereen beside the 87 other Irish towns of 2,000 to 3,900 people
Each town’s schools in or within 3 km, listed by population: Ireland publishes no results, so none is ranked
| Town | People | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claremorris | 3,857 | 3 | 1,120 | 0 | 0% | 0.7 km |
| … | ||||||
| Bantry | 2,929 | 4 | 1,227 | 1 | 0% | 0.9 km |
| Ballyjamesduff | 2,917 | 2 | 1,000 | 0 | 50% | 0.6 km |
| Boyle | 2,915 | 4 | 1,103 | 0 | 0% | 0.2 km |
| Murrough | 2,909 | 22 | 7,826 | 2 | 41% | 1.6 km |
| Skibbereen | 2,903 | 5 | 1,562 | 1 | 0% | 0.8 km |
| Carna | 2,897 | 60 | 18,688 | 4 | 58% | 0.9 km |
| Ballybrack | 2,872 | 41 | 11,728 | 1 | 29% | 0.9 km |
| Gort | 2,870 | 5 | 1,467 | 1 | 20% | 0.7 km |
| Mayfield | 2,846 | 65 | 19,177 | 6 | 45% | 0.3 km |
| … | ||||||
| Enniskerry | 2,000 | 10 | 2,487 | 0 | 20% | 2.9 km |
More pupils attend the schools around 38 of the other 87 towns than around Skibbereen. Teaching through Irish is on offer within 3 km in 42 of the 88.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Skibbereen
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 Skibbereen had 1,516 pupils in 2015/16 and 1,562 in 2025/26. Abbeystrewry N.S. grew most: +26% since 2019/20.
Pupils at schools in and around Skibbereen
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.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Skibbereen 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 Skibbereen
How many schools are there in Skibbereen?
In Skibbereen or within 3 km of it: 4 primary schools and 1 secondary school, with 1,562 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Skibbereen that teach through Irish?
Yes, 1: Gaelscoil Dr M Ui Shuilleabhain teach every subject through Irish.
Are there fee-paying secondary schools near Skibbereen?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Skibbereen?
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 Skibbereen?
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).