Accony School

Stories

Brian Gibbons, Derbyshire, England

I found your Accony School Reunion site a few days ago and was fascinated since my family came from the Louisburgh area and settled in Stockport , England between 1851 and 1853. I have visited Louisburgh on three occasions and recall driving up past the school. Little did I realise at the time that my ancestors may well have been taught there.

The recent release of the 1911 census in England shows that a great great uncle (Phillip Gibbons) and a great great aunt (Bridget Gibbons) identified their place of birth as “Runah, Mayo , Ireland .” Since your site shows that the catchment area for the school included Roonagh it is possible that they attended the new school at Accony. At the time the school opened Phillip would have been about eight years old and Bridget about six. It is also likely that their older brother John attended the school and he would have been about nine years old.

If possible, I would like to find evidence of their connection with the school. Do you know of the existence of any school log books, diaries or possibly registers from the opening of the school in 1848 and if so their location and whether they include the names of children attending the school?

During a visit to the parish priest in 2003 I enquired about registers of births, marriages and deaths relating to the time my family lived in the area. We were made very welcome but sadly the records for that period were not complete and revealed nothing. After drawing a blank with the church records, I am interested to know if there is a local tradition of keeping family bibles which record details of the baptisms, marriages and burials of relatives. If so perhaps somebody may be willing to help me with my research into my family history.

Having narrowed down my search for ancestors from the Gibbons family to the townland of Roonagh, I hope that you can help me or point me in the right direction and I have attached a list of my family members who I believe came from there.

If you are able to pass this information on to anyone that can help me with my research I would be most grateful.

I hope that your Reunion day is a great success. Contact details: brianj@gibbons26.freeserve.co.uk

Pauline McGreal Chapman,Coventry/Doughmakone

I started school in 1954 along with Jane and Irene O'Malley of Doughmakone, Ann Lyons of Accony, Rene McHale of Askelane and Maureen and Kathleen McDonough of Pulgloss.
My teachers were Pauline McCann from Clare Island I think and also Mary Gibbons of Accony and Tommy McHale of Pulgloss. I remember the games we used to play like Hop Scotch, Jackstones, Rounders and Hide and Seek and the fun we used to have going to and from school. It seemed a long walk to school - about three miles I think, though it seemed a lot further in bad weather. On the way home on a summer's evening we used to get a drink of water from Mrs Gibbons' spring well; she always left a cup or a jug out for us so that we could get a drink.

Robert O'Keane, Colgate, Wisconsin

Even though I am not an alumnus of Accony National School , I am writing a guest entry on your Accony School Reunion web site since I am the proud great-grandson of a "Katherine Prendergast" who was born and raised in Accony in the 1820's and 30's. Katherine is likely to be listed as an "unnamed daughter" in a Prendergast family tree currently being developed by others.

Katherine Prendergast married my great-grandfather, Mathew O'Keane (Keane), a teacher who came to the Accony area in the late 1830's or early 1840's (hedge teacher?). They then immigrated to America in 1848 and settled in rural Wisconsin about 100 miles north of Chicago where I still live on a little corner of the family farm and where one of Katherine and Mathew's sons and then one of their grandsons farmed. I, the great-grandson, went back to Mathew's profession and became a teacher.

 A cousin of Katherine's came from Accony sometime after 1848 to visit in America, but became so ill that he had to return to Ireland on a stretcher to die and was given the sad nickname, "Sick Geoffrey." But upon returning to Accony, he was restored and went on to lead a long and happy life.

Later, another cousin, James Prendergast, born 1847, the son of James Prendergast and Mary McKay, came from Accony to America in 1875 to marry my Great-aunt Mary Jane, a widowed daughter of Katherine and Mathew, in what was probably an arranged marriage.

Other Prendergast relatives identified on the back of old photographs---Ann, Sadie, Mayme, Agnes, and Nellie---lived in the Chicago area in the late 1800's, but contact with them has been lost since the early 1900's.

Even though your school records would probably not have many details for the first half of the 1800's, your Accony National School Reunion is still of great interest since it takes place in my Great-grandmother Katherine's home region and in an area where my Great-grandfather Mathew might have been a teacher in Ireland, as well as the place where the two probably met and married.

My wife and I, both retired teachers, have taken special interest in the earlier, one-room schools of our rural America where Mathew taught after coming to America. Those schools have similar descriptions to the early descriptions of your Accony School  in the "Stories" section of your web site. I attended a two-room school in rural America in the 1950's that also appears similar to your school's descriptions.

Bridie McCormack, Pulgloss & South Carolina

I probably started school in 1948 and had two wonderful teachers in lower classes.  First Mrs. O’Toole from Carramore and then Mary Gibbons from Accony; Mary was young and we thought she was great. We loved to go out to play and would sit on the grass playing Jack Stones with Kathleen Mc Hale, Pulgloss and Kathleen Mc Greal from Doughmakeon.  The only ones I can remember being in my class were Noel Lyons from Accony and Michael O’Toole from Doughmakeon. 

We loved bringing flowers to school in May and decorating the fire screen with them. A very special event was stopping at a house that had The Stations that morning and being served tea and lovely cakes and biscuits. Looking back it did not take much to make us happy.

Carrying turf to school was awful and we sometimes cheated by “borrowing” sods from Mickey O’Malley’s in Askelane as their stack of turf was close to the road and we never got caught!

I will always remember the annual visit by the dentist.  We would line up, hear the clang as the tooth was dropped in the tin cup and walk home still bleeding. If we did that now to our kids they would end up on the psychiatrist’s couch but we all survived and can look back and smile.

I left for New York with my brother Mikie in March of 1959.  I had just turned sixteen and he was twenty. I had no idea what I was facing but my brother P.J. and my sister Janey (Jane Eva to some) had emigrated in 1957 so we were not alone. Life has been good and I can I tell the stories of our early days with pride.

Mary (Lannon) Whalley, Accony and England

The year was 1937 and I was then seven years old, and it is here that I acquired the name ‘Cotton-Top’ due to my fair hair, but it was not always used endearingly. It must have been very satisfying for the teachers to have their own classrooms at last - bright and airy, with three large windows that overlooked sea and countryside and three smaller windows on the opposite side that were ceiling high. There was plenty of space for the necessary school room equipment, and instead of the long desks there were new desks that seated two pupils.

Though the cupboards I am about to describe did not appear for some time in the classroom, I feel I should describe them here; there were two glass-fronted cupboards – one above the other, which contained toys and dolls donated by the pupils on request by the teacher so that those less fortunate could enjoy the display. I remember a pair of Mickey-mouse (toys) hanging from a spring on either side of the cupboard. These would bounce up and down if we got an opportunity to touch them. On the surface of the lower cupboard was the box used for collecting the pennies for the black babies. When the penny touched a slot, the head of the model black baby moved up and down in a gesture of thanks.

At last there was a separate cloakroom for the boys and the girls at either end and we were all given a peg number for our coats – a welcome change from having to pick our coats from the wet ground in the little porch. A play shed at each end for the boys and the girls served as a shelter as well as a play area during lunch break. It was the norm for girls and boys to be separated during playtime.

Crash at Emlagh

In October 1942 an RAF Lockheed Ventura II plane (similar to that in the photo) landed on the Dooagh at Emlagh at about  9.30am .  The children on their way to school headed for the Dooagh.  Ritchie (Tommy Lannon) Prendergast who went to see the plane described the roadside back to Emlagh as being littered with abandoned school bags.

Peter McKeown, Roonagh

Peter McKeown of Roonagh emigrated to Canada where he became a trapper until his death near Lake Athabasca in the 1960's. An avid collector of songs and recitations, he left a great impression on local people when he came home for a holiday. One of his favourite songs was 'The Land of the Midnight Snow':

In the land of the midnight snow, where it's ninety nine below,

And the polar bear goes roaming o'er the plain,

In the shadow of the pole, I will clasp her to my soul,

We'll be happy when the iceworm nests again.

Please use our Guestbook to upload the rest of the words if you happen to know them.

The school was used from time to time by various Department of Agriculture specialists for lectures on improved farming methods.  It was also used for cookery demonstrations. A few dances were held in the early 50’s to help defray the cost of school repairs.  Gus O’Toole, Louisburgh was one of the musicians.

We would welcome any input, long or short, pictures, articles, stories, memories, historical research, etc., etc. Please e-mail us by clicking here john@acconyschool.com