Photo: P L Chadwick · CC BY-SA 2.0Greencastle has a school teaching entirely through Irish, one of 5 nearby
Every subject is taught through Irish at 20% of the schools around Greencastle, above both Co. Donegal’s towns (7%) and Irish towns (8%). Its one secondary school within 3 km, Moville Community College, has 648 pupils. Ireland publishes no school results, and the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing them, so these schools are described here, never 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 Greencastle’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 Chois Feabhaill (75). Language ↓
Facts from the Department of Education’s lists; nothing here judges how well a school teaches.
Teaching through Irish in and around Greencastle
How many schools teach through each language; the tick marks Ireland’s share.
1 of Greencastle’s 5 schools teach every subject through Irish: Gaelscoil Chois Feabhaill.
The 5 schools in and around Greencastle
Each school in or within 3 km of Greencastle links to a page of its own. Without school-level results from Ireland, the cards show no letters.
Where the 5 schools in and around Greencastle 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 Greencastle’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 Greencastle’s schools serve
Shares of the pupils at the area’s schools, beside Co. Donegal’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 Greencastle | Co. Donegal | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 78% | 62% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 7% | 10% | 6% |
| Girls | 48% | 49% | 49% |
More of the pupils around Greencastle are at DEIS schools than across Ireland: 78% against 27% (Co. Donegal: 62%). The biggest school in DEIS is Moville Community College (648 pupils).
Each of the 5 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scoil CholmcillePrimary | 133 | 46% | ||
| Gaelscoil Chois FeabhaillPrimary | 75 | 63% | ✓ | |
| Moville N.S.Primary | 32 | 47% | ||
| Scoil EoghanPrimary | 212 | 44% | ✓ | |
| Moville Community CollegePost-primary · ETB | 648 | 48% | ✓ |
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 Greencastle’s schools
Ethos as listed for 2025/26: each bar splits the schools by who runs them.
3 of Greencastle’s 5 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Bishop of Derry (2), An Foras Pátrúnachta (1) and Bishop of Derry & Raphoe COI (1). 2 of the 5 are 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 Greencastle’s schools
The patron owns the school and sets its ethos; a board of management runs it day to day.
Bishop of Derry is patron of 2 of the 5 schools around Greencastle, which teach 31% of their pupils; 4 patrons run them in all. The local Education and Training Board runs one.
| Patron | Ethos | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop of DerryScoil Eoghan, Scoil Cholmcille | Catholic | 2 | 345 |
| Donegal ETBMoville | Inter-denominational | 1 | 648 |
| An Foras PátrúnachtaGaelscoil Chois Feabhaill | Catholic | 1 | 75 |
| Bishop of Derry & Raphoe COIMoville | Church of Ireland | 1 | 32 |
Department of Education school lists: patron 2024/25, ethos 2025/26.
How children get a place in Greencastle
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
Between 2019/20 and now, 2 of the 5 grew by 5% or more and 3 shrank as much, while Ireland’s pupil numbers moved +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 Greencastle’s schools
The Department of Education’s Inspectorate: every school’s reports linked, none rated
Inspectors visit every kind of school. Whole-school evaluations look at teaching and learning, leadership and management; subject inspections look at one subject; follow-through inspections check whether earlier advice was taken. Each report is published 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 5 schools below each link their own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Scoil CholmcillePrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Gaelscoil Chois FeabhaillPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Moville N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil EoghanPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Moville Community CollegePost-primary · ETB | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Greencastle
Post-primary schools within 10 km of the town; children move at about twelve, and families apply to each school
The only post-primary school within 10 km of Greencastle is Moville Community College, an ETB school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moville Community CollegeETB · Inter-denominational | Girls and boys | DEIS | 648 | 4 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Greencastle beside the 124 other Irish towns of 900 to 1,700 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tullyallen | 1,697 | 1 | 411 | 0 | 0% | 3.7 km |
| … | ||||||
| Dromiskin | 1,292 | 1 | 234 | 0 | 0% | 6.8 km |
| Enniscrone | 1,291 | 2 | 381 | 0 | 0% | 0.3 km |
| Ramelton | 1,288 | 4 | 354 | 0 | 50% | 6.7 km |
| Piltown | 1,275 | 1 | 254 | 0 | 0% | 3.8 km |
| Greencastle | 1,268 | 5 | 1,100 | 1 | 40% | 4 km |
| Portrane | 1,262 | 11 | 5,394 | 2 | 9% | 2.2 km |
| Clifden | 1,259 | 2 | 730 | 0 | 100% | 1.2 km |
| Killybegs | 1,258 | 5 | 697 | 0 | 80% | 0.5 km |
| Kilpedder | 1,248 | 9 | 3,990 | 0 | 11% | 3 km |
| … | ||||||
| Clarinbridge | 905 | 2 | 451 | 0 | 0% | 5.5 km |
Of these 124 other towns, 26 count more pupils at their schools than Greencastle. Within 3 km, 14 of these 125 towns have a school teaching through Irish.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Greencastle
Every school in or within 3 km of the town each September, counted where it stands today.
The schools in and around Greencastle had 1,029 pupils in 2015/16 and 1,100 in 2025/26. Moville Community College grew most: +25% since 2019/20.
Pupils at schools in and around Greencastle
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 Greencastle
Each town’s schools in or within 3 km of its outline; distances as the crow flies.
| Town | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greencastle | 5 | 1,100 | 1 | 40% | 4 km |
| Moville 3.1 km | 5 | 1,100 | 1 | 40% | 0.8 km |
| Carndonagh 18 km | 7 | 1,729 | 0 | 100% | 0.1 km |
Of Greencastle’s neighbours, Moville saw the most growth in pupils since 2019/20 (+7%) and Carndonagh the least (+4%); Greencastle itself: +7%.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Greencastle 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 Greencastle
How many schools are there in Greencastle?
In Greencastle or within 3 km of it: 4 primary schools and 1 secondary school, with 1,100 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Greencastle that teach through Irish?
Yes, 1: Gaelscoil Chois Feabhaill teach every subject through Irish.
Are there fee-paying secondary schools near Greencastle?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Greencastle?
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 Greencastle?
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).