Photo: Kenneth Allen · CC BY-SA 2.0Around Killybegs, only 0% of schools teach through Irish, fewer than around Co. Donegal’s towns or Irish towns
On this, Killybegs is below both Co. Donegal’s towns (7%) and Irish towns (8%). St. Catherine's Vocational School, with 359 pupils, is the only secondary school within 3 km. Ireland publishes no school results, and the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing them, so these schools are described here, never graded or ranked.
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 Killybegs’s schools
Extra support for many schools
Many schools here are in DEIS, which gives schools in disadvantaged areas more teachers, money and help; across Ireland, 30% of schools are. In DEIS: St. Catherine's Vocational School (359), S.N. Neill Mor (240), Killybegs Common N.S. (75) and Bruckless N.S. (18). Who runs them ↓
Drawn from the Department of Education’s lists; none of it judges how well a school teaches.
Who runs Killybegs’s schools
Ethos as listed for 2025/26: each bar splits the schools by who runs them.
4 of Killybegs’s 5 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Bishop of Raphoe (4) and Donegal ETB (1). 4 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 5 schools in and around Killybegs
Every school in Killybegs or within 3 km of its outline, each linked to its own page. Without school-level results from Ireland, the cards show no letters.
Where the 5 schools in and around Killybegs 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 Killybegs’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.
Teaching through Irish in and around Killybegs
How many schools teach through each language; the tick marks Ireland’s share.
None of the 5 schools in and around Killybegs teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Killybegs’s schools serve
How the area’s pupils divide, against 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 Killybegs | Co. Donegal | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 99% | 62% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 10% | 6% |
| Girls | 49% | 49% | 49% |
More of the pupils around Killybegs are at DEIS schools than across Ireland: 99% against 27% (Co. Donegal: 62%). Furthest from Ireland’s mix is the share of pupils at all-Irish schools: 0% here against 6%. The biggest school in DEIS is St. Catherine's Vocational School (359 pupils).
Each of the 5 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Catherine's Vocational SchoolPost-primary · ETB | 359 | 48% | ✓ | |
| S.N. Neill MorPrimary | 240 | 51% | ✓ | |
| Killybegs Common N.S.Primary | 75 | 47% | ✓ | |
| S.N. FhionntraPrimary | 5 | 60% | ||
| Bruckless N.S.Primary | 18 | 61% | ✓ |
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.
The 2 patrons of Killybegs’s schools
Patrons own the schools and set their ethos; boards of management run them day to day.
2 patrons run the 5 schools around Killybegs; the largest, Bishop of Raphoe, has 4 of them and 48% of the pupils. The local Education and Training Board runs one.
| Patron | Ethos | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop of RaphoeS.N. Neill Mor, Killybegs Common, Bruckless, S.N. Fhionntra | Catholic | 4 | 338 |
| Donegal ETBSt. Catherine's Vocational School | Multi-denominational | 1 | 359 |
Department of Education school lists: patron 2024/25, ethos 2025/26.
How children get a place in Killybegs
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
Since 2019/20, 2 of these 4 schools have grown by 5% or more and 1 have shrunk as much; across Ireland the number of 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 Killybegs’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 |
|---|---|
| St. Catherine's Vocational SchoolPost-primary · ETB | Inspection reports ↗ |
| S.N. Neill MorPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Killybegs Common N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| S.N. FhionntraPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Bruckless 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 Killybegs
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 Killybegs is St. Catherine's Vocational School, an ETB school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Catherine's Vocational SchoolETB · Multi-denominational | Girls and boys | DEIS | 359 | 0.5 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Killybegs
No special school is in or near Killybegs. 1 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.
Killybegs beside the 124 other Irish towns of 900 to 1,700 people
Schools in or within 3 km of each town, by population; none is ranked, as Ireland publishes no results
| Town | People | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tullyallen | 1,697 | 1 | 411 | 0 | 0% | 3.7 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 |
| Whitegate | 1,248 | 2 | 391 | 0 | 0% | 5.2 km |
| An Clochán Liath | 1,247 | 3 | 825 | 0 | 100% | 0.6 km |
| Kilmacanogue | 1,240 | 11 | 2,706 | 1 | 18% | 2.2 km |
| … | ||||||
| Clarinbridge | 905 | 2 | 451 | 0 | 0% | 5.5 km |
Of the other 124 towns, 58 have more pupils at the schools around them than Killybegs. 14 of the 125 towns have an all-Irish school within 3 km.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Killybegs
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 Killybegs had 695 pupils in 2015/16 and 697 in 2025/26. S.N. Neill Mor grew most: +22% since 2019/20.
Pupils at schools in and around Killybegs
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 Killybegs 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 Killybegs
How many schools are there in Killybegs?
In Killybegs or within 3 km of it: 4 primary schools and 1 secondary school, with 697 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Killybegs that teach through Irish?
None in Killybegs or within 3 km of it teaches every subject through Irish; some teach it as a subject only.
Are there fee-paying secondary schools near Killybegs?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Killybegs?
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 Killybegs?
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).