Photo: Jonathan Billinger · CC BY-SA 2.0Fewer single-sex secondaries around Rathangan than around Co. Kildare’s towns or Irish towns: 0%
In the comparison, Rathangan comes below both Co. Kildare’s towns (23%) and Irish towns (39%). Ardscoil Rath Iomgháin, with 751 pupils, is the only secondary school within 3 km. 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.
The 3 schools in and around Rathangan
Every school in Rathangan 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 3 schools in and around Rathangan 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 Rathangan’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 Rathangan
How many schools teach through each language; the tick marks Ireland’s share.
None of the 3 schools in and around Rathangan teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Rathangan’s schools serve
Shares of the pupils at the area’s schools, beside Co. Kildare’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 Rathangan | Co. Kildare | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 56% | 17% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 6% | 6% |
| Girls | 50% | 49% | 49% |
56% of the pupils around Rathangan are at a DEIS school, more than the 27% across Ireland (17% in Co. Kildare). Furthest from Ireland’s mix is the share of pupils at all-Irish schools: 0% here against 6%. The biggest school in DEIS is Ardscoil Rath Iomgháin (751 pupils).
Each of the 3 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ardscoil Rath IomgháinPost-primary · ETB | 751 | 51% | ✓ | |
| Rathangan B N.S.Primary | 308 | 0% | ||
| Scoil Bhride N.S.Primary | 286 | 100% |
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 Rathangan’s schools
Who runs each school, as listed for 2025/26; the bars give the share of schools of each kind.
2 of Rathangan’s 3 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin (2) and Kildare & Wicklow ETB (1). 1 of the 3 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 patrons of Rathangan’s schools
The patron owns the school and sets its ethos; a board of management runs it day to day.
The schools around Rathangan answer to 2 patrons, and Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin leads with 2 of the 3 schools and 44% of their pupils. The local Education and Training Board runs one.
| Patron | Ethos | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop of Kildare & LeighlinRathangan B, Scoil Bhride | Catholic | 2 | 594 |
| Kildare & Wicklow ETBArdscoil Rath Iomgháin | Multi-denominational | 1 | 751 |
Department of Education school lists: patron 2024/25, ethos 2025/26.
How children get a place in Rathangan
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 3 grew by 5% or more and 0 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 Rathangan’s schools
Reports from the Department of Education’s Inspectorate, every school’s linked and 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 3 schools below links its own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Ardscoil Rath IomgháinPost-primary · ETB | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Rathangan B N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil Bhride 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 Rathangan
Post-primary schools within 10 km of the town; children move at about twelve, and families apply to each school
Within 10 km of Rathangan there are 2 post-primary schools: one ETB school and one community school. Every one of them takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ardscoil Rath IomgháinETB · Multi-denominational | Girls and boys | DEIS | 751 | 0.6 km |
| Kildare Town Community SchoolCommunity school · Multi-denominational | Girls and boys | – | 1,014 | 8 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Rathangan
No special school is in or near Rathangan. 2 of the 2 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.
Rathangan beside the 85 other Irish towns of 2,300 to 4,400 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Courtown | 4,365 | 1 | 304 | 0 | 100% | 5.4 km |
| … | ||||||
| Limerick City Centre | 3,434 | 43 | 14,494 | 5 | 51% | 0.4 km |
| Clara | 3,403 | 3 | 699 | 0 | 100% | 0.3 km |
| Annacotty | 3,398 | 8 | 4,443 | 1 | 0% | 0.5 km |
| Tower | 3,300 | 6 | 2,638 | 1 | 17% | 3.2 km |
| Rathangan | 3,263 | 3 | 1,345 | 0 | 33% | 0.6 km |
| Crosshaven | 3,263 | 5 | 1,057 | 0 | 20% | 0.5 km |
| Virginia | 3,211 | 3 | 1,430 | 0 | 0% | 0.7 km |
| Ballinrobe | 3,148 | 3 | 1,391 | 0 | 0% | 0.7 km |
| Taylor's Hill | 3,141 | 30 | 10,795 | 4 | 23% | 0.4 km |
| … | ||||||
| Thomastown | 2,305 | 2 | 732 | 0 | 50% | 0.1 km |
Among the 85 other towns, 55 have more pupils at their schools than Rathangan does. Within 3 km, 48 of these 86 towns have a school teaching through Irish.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Rathangan
Each September’s pupils at every school in or within 3 km of the town, counted where the school stands today.
The schools in and around Rathangan had 1,235 pupils in 2015/16 and 1,345 in 2025/26.
Pupils at schools in and around Rathangan
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 Rathangan
For each nearby town, its schools in or within 3 km of its outline, with straight-line distances.
| Town | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rathangan | 3 | 1,345 | 0 | 33% | 0.6 km |
| Kildare 9.2 km | 4 | 2,671 | 1 | 25% | 1.2 km |
| Monasterevin 10 km | 5 | 1,605 | 0 | 20% | 0.7 km |
| Kilmeage 11 km | 2 | 357 | 0 | 0% | 7.1 km |
| Allenwood 11 km | 4 | 802 | 0 | 0% | 7.2 km |
| Newbridge 14 km | 18 | 7,450 | 1 | 33% | 0.4 km |
| Derrinturn 14 km | 3 | 426 | 0 | 100% | 8.3 km |
Kildare has the most schools teaching through Irish nearby: 1. Of Rathangan’s neighbours, Monasterevin saw the most growth in pupils since 2019/20 (+24%) and Kilmeage the least (−17%); Rathangan itself: +5%.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Rathangan 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 Rathangan
How many schools are there in Rathangan?
In Rathangan or within 3 km of it: 2 primary schools and 1 secondary school, with 1,345 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Rathangan that teach through Irish?
None in Rathangan 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 Rathangan?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Rathangan?
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 Rathangan?
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).