Bell sounds the end of school’s prefab era

Rarely can the old school bell have sounded so sweet.

Yesterday, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn rang in the official opening of an extension at a thriving West Cork primary school — 20 years after it first applied for funding to move out of prefabs.

Knockskeagh National School, some three miles outside Clonakilty, now has 109 pupils, but back in the mid-80s it had two dozen students and just one teacher. Parents locally decided to raise the money to cover the cost of a second teacher, Johnny Walsh, who yesterday, in his role of principal, helped to celebrate the opening of a new extension containing three new classrooms.