Ballybracken National School
The remains of Ballybracken National School stand at the
intersection of Old Ballybracken Road and Drumadarragh Road. It is
a sorry looking building which is now used as a shed by a local
farmer.
The school was originally built for the children living in the
immediate vicinity. It does not feature on the 1830 map of the
area, but is present on the 1852 one, suggesting that it was built
in the late 1840s. In addition to aid from the Commissioners of
National Education, local people (trustees) would have contributed
to the building of the school, with the ancestors of the currrent
owners, on whose land the school lies, donating ground for the
school to be built on. The building was repaired in 1904, but was
eventually closed in 1928. As there were never any title deeds for
the school and the last of the trustees died about 40 years ago,
ownership of the school reverted to the family who donated the land
at the school’s beginnings. They put a barn door in the side of the
school to enable them to store machinery, but the buildings have
deteriorated over the years and are now quite unsafe. There are
plans to repair and restore the school.
Due to the unsafe nature of the building,
the present owners have requested that no-one enters the
school.
Ireland's National School system was established in 1831 with
the joint aims of making literate the mass of the population and of
educating together children of all religious denominations.
Education during this period of history would have been very
regimented as were the the methods of teaching. At any time during
the day there would have been children standing at the front of the
room reciting their lessons or receiving instruction under the
close supervision of the teacher while the rest of the children
required a lower level of supervision as they did such work as
arithmetic or writing exercises in the desks. There was much rote
learning and also harsh punishments for those unwilling or unable
to learn at the pace set by the teacher. Many children would have
been caned or sent to the corner of the room and made to wear a
‘Dunce’s Hat’.
The photograph below was taken in 1913
Many thanks to Sandy Sherrard for his help in researching the
history of the school and for the photograph above. Thanks also to
James and Alan Wilson for further information and permission to
place the cache on their property.
Parking
As this is a fairly quiet country road, it is possible to park
close to the school, but please be careful not to park too close to
the junction.
The Cache
In keeping with the location of the cache, I thought it would be
appropriate to set a puzzle cache with some basic maths questions,
a few general knowledge questions and a number of brain teasers.
Don’t worry, there will be no canings or ‘Dunce’s Hats’ for those
getting any wrong – you just might not be able to find the
cache!
AB = A two digit number, which is divisible by both 4 and 7, and
the sum of whose digits equal 11.
C = Two times the half of two, twice.
D = A golfer’s cry!
If 5 cats kill 5 rats in 5 minutes, the length of time it will
take 9 cats to kill 9 rats = E
F = The value of the smallest coin in use in the UK today.
In a race, if I overtook the person who was in 5th place, my new
position would be = G
Each child in a family has at least 2 brothers and 2 sisters.
The smallest number of children there can be in the family is =
H
I = The number of each type of animal that Moses took into the
ark.
A man charges 1 pound to cut a log into 2 pieces. To cut it into
6 pieces, he charges how much? = J
A farmer has 4 haystacks in one field, 3 in another and 2 in
another. If he puts them all together he will have how many
haystacks? = K
A man has 10 black socks and 10 brown socks in a drawer. To be
sure of getting a matching pair, how many does he need to take out?
= L
If there are 4 people in a room and each person shakes hand with
every other person once, how many handshakes will there be? = M
Enter your answers to find the coordinates
for the cache location.
N AC DB.EFG
W H IJ.KLM
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.
The cache itself is a micro with only a log included. There is
no need to enter the school or any private land to access this
cache.