Photo: Darren J. Prior · CC BY-SA 4.0Pupil numbers around Castlerea are rising faster than around Irish towns: +23% since 2019/20
Measured that way, Castlerea is above Irish towns (+4%). Pupils: 959, up 23% since 2019/20. 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.
What stands out about Castlerea’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: Castlerea Community School (389), Tarmon N.S. (276), St Annes Con N.S. (141) and S.N. Pol Naofa (66). Who runs them ↓
More pupils every year
Pupil numbers at the schools here have grown faster than across Ireland (+5% since 2019/20), so classes and new places are a question worth asking. Pupils over time ↓
From the Department of Education’s school lists: facts, not judgements of how well a school teaches.
Who runs Castlerea’s schools
Ethos as listed for 2025/26: each bar splits the schools by who runs them.
4 of Castlerea’s 5 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Bishop of Elphin (4) and Galway & Roscommon ETB & Religious Sisters of Mercy (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.
Pupil numbers around Castlerea
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 Castlerea had 760 pupils in 2015/16 and 959 in 2025/26. Tarmon N.S. grew most: +54% since 2019/20.
Pupils at schools in and around Castlerea
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.
The 5 schools in and around Castlerea
Each school in or within 3 km of Castlerea links to a page of its own. Letters and results are missing here for a reason: Ireland publishes neither school by school.
Where the 5 schools in and around Castlerea 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 Castlerea’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 Castlerea
The schools by teaching language, with Ireland’s share as the black tick.
None of the 5 schools in and around Castlerea teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Castlerea’s schools serve
How the area’s pupils divide, against Co. Roscommon’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 Castlerea | Co. Roscommon | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 91% | 29% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 1% | 6% |
| Girls | 47% | 48% | 49% |
More of the pupils around Castlerea are at DEIS schools than across Ireland: 91% against 27% (Co. Roscommon: 29%). The biggest difference from Ireland is in pupils at all-Irish schools: 0% here, 6% there. Of the DEIS schools here, Castlerea Community School is the biggest: 389 pupils.
Each of the 5 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlerea Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | 389 | 51% | ✓ | |
| St Annes Con N.S.Primary | 141 | 72% | ✓ | |
| Scoil Micheal NaofaSpecial | 87 | 28% | ||
| S.N. Pol NaofaPrimary | 66 | 0% | ✓ | |
| Tarmon N.S.Primary | 276 | 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.
The 2 patrons of Castlerea’s schools
The patron owns the school and sets its ethos; a board of management runs it day to day.
The schools around Castlerea answer to 2 patrons, and Bishop of Elphin leads with 4 of the 5 schools and 59% of their pupils. The local Education and Training Board runs one.
| Patron | Ethos | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop of ElphinTarmon, St Annes Con, Scoil Micheal Naofa, S.N. Pol Naofa | Catholic | 4 | 570 |
| Galway & Roscommon ETB & Religious Sisters of MercyCastlerea | Inter-denominational | 1 | 389 |
Department of Education school lists: patron 2024/25, ethos 2025/26.
How children get a place in Castlerea
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
3 schools here have grown by 5% or more since 2019/20, 1 have shrunk by as much, out of 4; across Ireland: +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 Castlerea’s schools
The Inspectorate’s published reports for each school, linked, without ratings
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 |
|---|---|
| Castlerea Community SchoolPost-primary · Community school | Inspection reports ↗ |
| St Annes Con N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Scoil Micheal NaofaSpecial | Inspection reports ↗ |
| S.N. Pol NaofaPrimary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Tarmon 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 Castlerea
All post-primaries within 10 km; at about twelve, families choose and apply school by school
The only post-primary school within 10 km of Castlerea is Castlerea Community School, a community school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlerea Community SchoolCommunity school · Inter-denominational | Girls and boys | DEIS | 389 | 0.3 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Castlerea
Scoil Micheal Naofa is the special school here, with 87 pupils. 2 of the 3 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.
Castlerea beside the 103 other Irish towns of 1,600 to 3,200 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballinrobe | 3,148 | 3 | 1,391 | 0 | 0% | 0.7 km |
| … | ||||||
| Grange Upper | 2,510 | 29 | 11,835 | 2 | 41% | 0.8 km |
| Castleconnell | 2,488 | 2 | 536 | 0 | 0% | 5.9 km |
| Prosperous | 2,413 | 2 | 1,169 | 0 | 50% | 0.5 km |
| Ballaghaderreen | 2,387 | 2 | 968 | 0 | 100% | 0.3 km |
| Castlerea | 2,348 | 5 | 959 | 0 | 80% | 0.3 km |
| Bearna | 2,336 | 10 | 4,172 | 4 | 10% | 2.8 km |
| Tubbercurry | 2,307 | 4 | 1,130 | 0 | 25% | 1.7 km |
| Thomastown | 2,305 | 2 | 732 | 0 | 50% | 0.1 km |
| Balrothery | 2,282 | 16 | 7,860 | 2 | 31% | 1.7 km |
| … | ||||||
| Castlemartyr | 1,603 | 2 | 314 | 0 | 0% | 8 km |
Among the 103 other towns, 57 have more pupils at their schools than Castlerea does. Teaching through Irish is on offer within 3 km in 32 of the 104.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Schools in the towns around Castlerea
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlerea | 5 | 959 | 0 | 80% | 0.3 km |
| Ballaghaderreen 16 km | 2 | 968 | 0 | 100% | 0.3 km |
| Ballyhaunis 19 km | 2 | 1,102 | 0 | 100% | 0.7 km |
Since 2019/20 the pupils around Castlerea changed by +23%; among its neighbours, Ballyhaunis’s grew most (+11%) and Ballaghaderreen’s least (+10%).
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Castlerea 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 Castlerea
How many schools are there in Castlerea?
In Castlerea or within 3 km of it: 3 primary schools, 1 secondary school and 1 special school, with 959 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Castlerea that teach through Irish?
None in Castlerea 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 Castlerea?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Castlerea?
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 Castlerea?
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).