Photo: JohnArmagh · CC BY-SA 3.0Fewer single-sex secondaries around Ballyhaunis than around Co. Mayo’s towns or Irish towns: 0%
That puts Ballyhaunis below both Co. Mayo’s towns (67%) and Irish towns (39%). Ballyhaunis Community School, with 717 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.
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.
What stands out about Ballyhaunis’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: Ballyhaunis Community School (717) and Scoil Iosa (385). Who runs them ↓
Drawn from the Department of Education’s lists; none of it judges how well a school teaches.
Who runs Ballyhaunis’s schools
Who runs each school, as listed for 2025/26; the bars give the share of schools of each kind.
1 of Ballyhaunis’s 2 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim ETB & Archbishop of Tuam (1) and Archbishop of Tuam (1). 2 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 Ballyhaunis
Here are the schools in Ballyhaunis or within 3 km of it, every one with its own page. Ireland publishes no results school by school, so these cards carry no letters or results.
Where the 2 schools in and around Ballyhaunis 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 Ballyhaunis’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 Ballyhaunis
How many schools teach through each language; the tick marks Ireland’s share.
None of the 2 schools in and around Ballyhaunis teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Ballyhaunis’s schools serve
The pupils at the area’s schools by share, beside Co. Mayo’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 Ballyhaunis | Co. Mayo | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 100% | 37% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 5% | 6% |
| Girls | 47% | 48% | 49% |
Around Ballyhaunis, 100% of pupils attend a school in DEIS; across Ireland it is 27%, and 37% in Co. Mayo. The biggest difference from Ireland is in pupils at all-Irish schools: 0% here, 6% there. Of the DEIS schools here, Ballyhaunis Community School is the biggest: 717 pupils.
Each of the 2 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballyhaunis Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | 717 | 46% | ✓ | |
| Scoil IosaPrimary | 385 | 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.
How children get a place in Ballyhaunis
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 Ballyhaunis’s schools
The Inspectorate’s published reports for each school, linked, without ratings
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 2 schools below links its own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Ballyhaunis Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil IosaPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Ballyhaunis
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 Ballyhaunis is Ballyhaunis Community School, a community school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballyhaunis Community SchoolCommunity school · Inter-denominational | Girls and boys | DEIS | 717 | 0.7 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Ballyhaunis
No special school is in or near Ballyhaunis. 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.
Ballyhaunis beside the 84 other Irish towns of 1,900 to 3,700 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cahir | 3,679 | 2 | 1,300 | 0 | 50% | 0.6 km |
| … | ||||||
| Edenmore | 2,831 | 71 | 20,216 | 5 | 41% | 0.9 km |
| Sunday's Well | 2,807 | 69 | 20,909 | 6 | 52% | 0.5 km |
| Kanturk | 2,803 | 3 | 1,290 | 0 | 0% | 0.4 km |
| Blarney | 2,779 | 5 | 2,101 | 1 | 20% | 0.6 km |
| Ballyhaunis | 2,773 | 2 | 1,102 | 0 | 100% | 0.7 km |
| Carndonagh | 2,768 | 7 | 1,729 | 0 | 100% | 0.1 km |
| Kilbarry | 2,758 | 30 | 12,024 | 1 | 43% | 1.9 km |
| Claddagh | 2,755 | 31 | 11,252 | 4 | 32% | 0.5 km |
| Donegal | 2,749 | 6 | 1,791 | 1 | 0% | 0.7 km |
| … | ||||||
| Banagher | 1,907 | 3 | 877 | 0 | 0% | 0.5 km |
Among the 84 other towns, 59 have more pupils at their schools than Ballyhaunis does. An all-Irish school is within 3 km of 38 of the 85.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Pupil numbers around Ballyhaunis
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 Ballyhaunis had 874 pupils in 2015/16 and 1,102 in 2025/26.
Pupils at schools in and around Ballyhaunis
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 Ballyhaunis
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballyhaunis | 2 | 1,102 | 0 | 100% | 0.7 km |
| Knock 10 km | 1 | 152 | 0 | 100% | 7.8 km |
| Claremorris 16 km | 3 | 1,120 | 0 | 0% | 0.7 km |
| Kiltimagh 18 km | 2 | 963 | 0 | 0% | 0.3 km |
| Castlerea 19 km | 5 | 959 | 0 | 80% | 0.3 km |
Since 2019/20 the pupils around Ballyhaunis changed by +11%; among its neighbours, Castlerea’s grew most (+23%) and Claremorris’s least (−6%).
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Ballyhaunis 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 Ballyhaunis
How many schools are there in Ballyhaunis?
In Ballyhaunis or within 3 km of it: 1 primary school and 1 secondary school, with 1,102 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Ballyhaunis that teach through Irish?
None in Ballyhaunis 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 Ballyhaunis?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Ballyhaunis?
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 Ballyhaunis?
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).