West Cork island facing annual fight to attract families amid fears for school’s future

The children of just one family living on Cape Clear make up the school’s four pupils

Just three months ago, Cape Clear’s Scoil Náisiúnta Inis Chléire’s future seemed assured with the prospect of three new families sending their children there from September. But none of them started as expectedPicture: Neil Michael.

One of the country’s last remaining island primary schools faces an annual fight to attract families with children for the “foreseeable future”, say residents.

Just three months ago, Cape Clear’s Scoil Náisiúnta Inis Chléire’s future seemed assured with the prospect of three new families sending their children there from September.

But none of them started as expected, and now only the children of just one family living on the West Cork island make up the school’s four children.

A fifth, the daughter of a local woman, was also due to start, but she is now being schooled on the mainland, in Baltimore.

Two families with children who had expressed interest in taking up two houses available for rent on the island have not arrived.

One of the families, Irish but living in Britain, has pulled out. The second family, who live in another part of the country, are due to arrive by either the end of the year or the start of 2026.

Whether or not they intend to send their children to Scoil Náisiúnta Inis Chléire is not clear.

The number of children at the school, which has two teachers, is at one of its lowest ever levels — down from eight children in 2020 and 15 in 2015.

A boy and two girls who joined in September 2020 —just three weeks after their parents first set foot on the island — have since returned to Kerry.

A Syrian family, which had moved to the island under the Irish Refugee Protection Programme, has also relocated to the mainland.

Islanders are now “very worried” the school could again be at risk of closing.

As long as the school numbers remain as they are, there is a heightened sense of fear about its future.

In a bid to attract families, Cape Clear’s development agency manager Kevin McCann and the board launched a campaign earlier in the year to offer low-cost rental properties for families with school-age children.

“There are two facts of island life that we now have to face up to,” he said.

“Until we are allowed to build housing on the island, we will always have a housing problem, and as long as we have one of those, we will have a problem attracting families to the island.

“We now have to accept that every year we are going to have to find ways to attract families with school-age children to the island.

“I am confident the second of the two families will be with us by the end of the year or the start of the next. But we have learned that we can never be complacent about anything.”