Photo: David Dixon · CC BY-SA 2.0Few schools around Oughterard teach through Irish: 0%, below Co. Galway’s towns and Irish towns
Set beside other towns, Oughterard comes out below both Co. Galway’s towns (15%) and Irish towns (8%). Its one secondary school within 3 km, St Pauls, has 465 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.
Who runs Oughterard’s schools
Each school’s ethos, 2025/26: the bars show the share of schools of each kind.
2 of Oughterard’s 2 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: CEIST (1) and Bishop of Galway, Kilmacduagh & Kilfenora (1). 1 of the 2 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 2 schools in and around Oughterard
Every school in Oughterard or within 3 km of its outline, each linked to its own page. Ireland doesn’t publish results for individual schools, so none of these carries a letter.
Where the 2 schools in and around Oughterard 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 Oughterard’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 Oughterard
The schools by teaching language, with Ireland’s share as the black tick.
None of the 2 schools in and around Oughterard teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Oughterard’s schools serve
How the area’s pupils divide, against Co. Galway’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 Oughterard | Co. Galway | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 36% | 21% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 14% | 6% |
| Girls | 47% | 49% | 49% |
Around Oughterard, 36% of pupils attend a school in DEIS; across Ireland it is 27%, and 21% in Co. Galway. Set beside Ireland, pupils at all-Irish schools stand out most: 0% against 6%. The largest DEIS school here is Scoil Chuimín & Caitríona, with 265 pupils.
Each of the 2 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St PaulsPost-primary · Voluntary secondary | 465 | 47% | ||
| Scoil Chuimín & CaitríonaPrimary | 265 | 47% | ✓ |
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.
How children get a place in Oughterard
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 Oughterard’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 |
|---|---|
| St PaulsPost-primary · Voluntary secondary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil Chuimín & CaitríonaPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Oughterard
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 Oughterard is St Pauls, a voluntary secondary school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St PaulsVoluntary secondary · Catholic | Girls and boys | – | 465 | 0.6 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Oughterard
No special school is in or near Oughterard. 1 of the 1 primary schools has 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.
Oughterard beside the 90 other Irish towns of 1,300 to 2,500 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castleconnell | 2,488 | 2 | 536 | 0 | 0% | 5.9 km |
| … | ||||||
| Portlaw | 1,881 | 1 | 214 | 0 | 100% | 4.7 km |
| Ballivor | 1,870 | 2 | 248 | 0 | 100% | 9.7 km |
| Cootehill | 1,856 | 4 | 1,198 | 0 | 25% | 1.3 km |
| Castlebridge | 1,850 | 3 | 459 | 0 | 0% | 5.1 km |
| Oughterard | 1,846 | 2 | 730 | 0 | 50% | 0.6 km |
| Watergrasshill | 1,840 | 1 | 391 | 0 | 0% | 8.8 km |
| Derrinturn | 1,837 | 3 | 426 | 0 | 100% | 8.3 km |
| Collooney | 1,797 | 3 | 580 | 0 | 33% | 3.4 km |
| Rosslare | 1,795 | 3 | 512 | 0 | 100% | 8.7 km |
| … | ||||||
| Ferns | 1,317 | 2 | 324 | 0 | 50% | 10 km |
Of these 90 other towns, 44 count more pupils at their schools than Oughterard. An all-Irish school is within 3 km of 13 of the 91.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Oughterard
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 Oughterard had 627 pupils in 2015/16 and 730 in 2025/26.
Pupils at schools in and around Oughterard
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 Oughterard
Schools in or within 3 km of each neighbouring town; distances in a straight line.
| Town | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oughterard | 2 | 730 | 0 | 50% | 0.6 km |
| Maigh Cuilinn 14 km | 3 | 542 | 1 | 0% | 8.3 km |
| Headford 15 km | 4 | 1,120 | 0 | 0% | 0.8 km |
Maigh Cuilinn has the most schools teaching through Irish nearby: 1. Pupils around Oughterard: +9% since 2019/20. Among the neighbours, Headford led (+8%) and Maigh Cuilinn trailed (−5%).
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Oughterard 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 Oughterard
How many schools are there in Oughterard?
In Oughterard or within 3 km of it: 1 primary school and 1 secondary school, with 730 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Oughterard that teach through Irish?
None in Oughterard 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 Oughterard?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Oughterard?
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 Oughterard?
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).