Photo: A.-K. D. · CC0DEIS support is less common around Ballinakill: 0% of schools, below Co. Laois’ towns and Irish towns
For Ballinakill, that is below both Co. Laois’ towns (15%) and Irish towns (35%). Heywood Community School, with 749 pupils, is the only secondary school within 3 km. With no school results published in Ireland, and the Education Act 1998 restricting comparisons of them, these schools are described, not graded or ranked.
Every school in the town or within 3 km of its outline, from the Department of Education’s lists for 2025/26; Ireland’s figures are every school in the lists.
The 2 schools in and around Ballinakill
Each school in or within 3 km of Ballinakill links to a page of its own. Ireland publishes no results school by school, so these cards carry no letters or results.
Where the 2 schools in and around Ballinakill 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 Ballinakill’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 Ballinakill
Schools by the language they teach in; the black tick is Ireland’s share.
None of the 2 schools in and around Ballinakill teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Ballinakill’s schools serve
Shares of the pupils at the area’s schools, beside Co. Laois’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 Ballinakill | Co. Laois | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 0% | 22% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 2% | 6% |
| Girls | 49% | 49% | 49% |
Around Ballinakill, 0% of pupils attend a school in DEIS; across Ireland it is 27%, and 22% in Co. Laois. The biggest difference from Ireland is in pupils at all-Irish schools: 0% here, 6% there.
Each of the 2 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballinakill Mixed N.S.Primary | 98 | 43% | ||
| Heywood Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | 749 | 49% |
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 Ballinakill’s schools
Ethos as listed for 2025/26: each bar splits the schools by who runs them.
1 of Ballinakill’s 2 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin (1) and Laois & Offaly ETB & Salesian Fathers of Don Bosco (1). None of the 2 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.
How children get a place in Ballinakill
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, 1 of these 2 schools have grown by 5% or more and 0 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 Ballinakill’s schools
Reports from the Department of Education’s Inspectorate, every school’s linked and 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 2 schools below each link their own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Ballinakill Mixed N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Heywood Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Ballinakill
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 Ballinakill is Heywood Community School, a community school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heywood Community SchoolCommunity school · Inter-denominational | Girls and boys | – | 749 | 1.2 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Ballinakill beside the 217 other Irish towns of 300 to 600 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freshford | 593 | 2 | 244 | 0 | 50% | 10 km |
| … | ||||||
| Twomileborris | 469 | 1 | 148 | 0 | 0% | 6.5 km |
| Ardmore | 468 | 2 | 154 | 0 | 50% | 9.5 km |
| Ballindine | 468 | 1 | 138 | 0 | 0% | 7.7 km |
| Rampark | 465 | 2 | 249 | 0 | 0% | 4.8 km |
| Ballinakill | 462 | 2 | 847 | 0 | 0% | 1.2 km |
| Rathmolyon | 462 | 1 | 73 | 0 | 0% | 7.2 km |
| Multyfarnham | 460 | 2 | 675 | 0 | 0% | 2 km |
| Courtbrack | 459 | 1 | 167 | 0 | 0% | 7 km |
| Portroe | 459 | 2 | 256 | 0 | 0% | 8.5 km |
| … | ||||||
| Gneevgullia | 300 | 1 | 131 | 0 | 0% | 4.8 km |
Among the 217 other towns, 16 have more pupils at their schools than Ballinakill does. 19 of the 218 towns have an all-Irish school within 3 km.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Ballinakill
Every school in or within 3 km of the town each September, counted where it stands today.
The schools in and around Ballinakill had 768 pupils in 2015/16 and 847 in 2025/26.
Pupils at schools in and around Ballinakill
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 Ballinakill
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballinakill | 2 | 847 | 0 | 0% | 1.2 km |
| Abbeyleix 5 km | 2 | 353 | 0 | 0% | 4.5 km |
| Ballyragget 9.9 km | 1 | 163 | 0 | 0% | 8 km |
| Castlecomer 11 km | 3 | 807 | 0 | 67% | 0.5 km |
| Mountrath 18 km | 7 | 1,306 | 1 | 29% | 0.8 km |
| Portlaoise 18 km | 13 | 6,518 | 1 | 15% | 0.6 km |
| Stradbally 19 km | 2 | 375 | 0 | 0% | 10 km |
Mountrath has the most schools teaching through Irish nearby: 1. Of Ballinakill’s neighbours, Stradbally saw the most growth in pupils since 2019/20 (+24%) and Abbeyleix the least (−16%); Ballinakill itself: +1%.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Ballinakill 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 Ballinakill
How many schools are there in Ballinakill?
In Ballinakill or within 3 km of it: 1 primary school and 1 secondary school, with 847 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Ballinakill that teach through Irish?
None in Ballinakill 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 Ballinakill?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Ballinakill?
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 Ballinakill?
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).