Principal Caitríona Cullinane has been working at Shinrone National School for almost thirty-years. In that time, she's seen education evolve in the town, noting changes in the diagnosis of special educational needs, the increase in students learning English as a second language, and the introduction of new technologies in the classroom.

For Cullinane, who has spent nearly three decades in Shinrone, the village’s defining quality is its warmth and openness. She describes Shinrone as “such a welcoming place” and says she would not have spent a third of her life there if she had not been happy, praising local people as “special” in the way they invite others in and make them feel part of the community.

That sense of welcome is mirrored in the school itself, which has embraced families from across Ireland and, increasingly, from around the world. Cullinane speaks of being “blessed” to now have pupils from Afghanistan, China, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, all enriching the cultural fabric of Shinrone National School.

The school’s history stretches back to 1883, when a two-room building on the current site housed separate classes for boys and girls, divided by a wall “so never the twain should meet.” In those days, children brought a sod of turf each morning to feed the open fire and left their bottles of milk on the mantelpiece so they would be warm by break time, while the curriculum focused almost exclusively on the “three R’s” – reading, writing and maths.

The old building was demolished in 1975 to make way for the present school, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in November 2024. To mark the occasion, fifth and sixth class pupils interviewed past pupils, former teachers and other community members connected to the school, compiling their memories into a commemorative book that vividly revealed how school life has changed over the decades.

When Cullinane began teaching in Shinrone in 1997, it was a five-teacher school; today, the staff has grown to 18. The team now includes ten teachers, seven special needs assistants (SNAs), a dinner lady, a secretary, a caretaker and a cleaner, and in 2023 the school opened an autism (ASD) class – an achievement Cullinane counts among its proudest milestones.

One of the most striking changes in Cullinane’s career has been the rise in diagnosed special educational needs and the transformation in how schools are resourced to meet them. She suspects that children always had similar levels of need, but that teachers and services have become better at recognising and formally diagnosing conditions such as autism, dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties.

​

When she started teaching in 1996, there was no learning support teacher in Shinrone; the board of management even organised a petition to the Minister for Education to secure one for the school. The first special education teacher arrived around 1998, but before that, children with additional needs relied entirely on their class teacher, who might be managing a class of 36 pupils with several undiagnosed cases of dyslexia and no extra support – a situation Cullinane now regards as a stark indictment of the system at the time. Today, Shinrone National School has three special education teachers, including one who works specifically with children for whom English is an additional language, alongside its seven SNAs. For Cullinane, these supports symbolise how the entire system has shifted to focus on inclusion and on giving every child, regardless of their needs, a better chance to thrive.

With almost three decades of classes behind her, Cullinane has seen generations of children pass through Shinrone National School and move on to secondary school, work and family life. Many former pupils now live in neighbouring towns or further afield, with past students “all over the world” and relatively few settling long-term in the village itself because of limited local employment.

Reflecting on the status of teachers in rural Ireland, Cullinane looks back to a time when the schoolmaster and parish priest were often the only literate adults in a parish. In those years, families would go to the teacher to have letters written to relatives abroad, making the school a vital conduit between the local community and the wider world.

That world has changed, but in her role as principal, Cullinane still feels a strong sense of responsibility, particularly towards families who have recently arrived in Ireland. Parents from countries such as Ukraine and Afghanistan, navigating unfamiliar systems of housing, healthcare and social welfare, frequently turn to the school for guidance, and she and her staff are “only too happy” to help.

Crucially, she believes the respect traditionally afforded to teachers in the community remains intact. In her twenty-nine years in Shinrone, she says she has not witnessed any real erosion of that regard, perhaps because the school continues to act as a trusted anchor for families in a village that, while changing, still prides itself on being a place that welcomes and looks after its own.