Mullaghglass Primary School, 8 Goragh Road, Mullaghglass, Co.Armagh, BT35 6PZ

Mullaghglass Primary School is a single-storey, six-bay former Kildare Place Society school on the north side of Goragh Road, approximately 3 miles north-north-west of Newry. The original schoolhouse was constructed around 1827, with significant remodelling carried out around 1907–8 and further alterations subsequently. It sits on a constrained site immediately to the west of the Belfast–Dublin railway line and immediately to the east of the former Teacher's Residence (a separate listed building).

The building has a rectangular plan with a pitched natural slate roof, two metal roof vents, and two red brick chimneys to the gables. To the east gable there is a single pointed arch window with Y-tracery. All other windows have been replaced with uPVC units set in painted stone cills. The walls are painted roughcast. Rainwater goods are cast iron. A large single-storey extension abuts the rear wall of the original school building, and it is largely this extension — combined with the loss of historic fabric and detailing — that has led assessors to conclude there is insufficient special interest to meet the criteria for listing.

The building is recorded here primarily for its historical significance rather than its architectural integrity.

The schoolhouse at Mullaghglass (sometimes spelled Mullaglass in historic records) was originally built around 1827 as a Kildare Place Society school. The Kildare Place Society had been established in 1811 by a group of philanthropists who set up non-denominational schools where the Bible was read without commentary. The school cost approximately £150, the greater part of which was contributed by the local landlord, Roger Hall, with the remainder provided by the Society. According to Ordnance Survey Memoirs compiled around 1837, there were 121 children at the school at the time of survey — 111 boys and 10 girls — the majority of whom were Protestant. Five Catholic children attended. Eighty-seven of the children were under 10 years old. Pupils paid the master between one penny and three pence per week. The Townland Valuation of around 1835 records the building's dimensions as 39 feet 6 inches long by 23 feet wide and 9 feet 6 inches to the eaves, and confirms it was slated. No teacher's residence is mentioned at this date, suggesting that feature was added later.

The Kildare Place Society provided the model on which the National School system was established in 1831, after which government grants to the Society were ended. The Church of Ireland's Church Education Society took over the Kildare Place Training Institution in 1850 to train Anglican teachers. Records show that several teachers at Mullaghglass, including principals Francis Atkinson and Joseph Burrows, were trained at the Kildare Place training institution between 1888 and 1898.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation around 1862, the school was recorded as a "Scriptural school house" valued at £4 10 shillings, leased from Roger Hall of Narrow Water Castle, and had most likely come under the auspices of the Anglican Church Education Society. A teacher's house had by then been added to the site, valued at £3 5 shillings and occupied by the schoolmaster John Francis. The 1861 Ordnance Survey map confirms that the teacher's dwelling adjoined the school directly.

A sketch published in the Newry Reporter in 1906 shows the original schoolhouse with a hipped roof — newly fitted with a ventilator that year — and three large windows to the front elevation. The adjoining teacher's house had chimneys to the end gables, five windows to the front elevation, and a porch with a pitched roof.

By 1873, the school's connection to the Church Education Society had lapsed and funding was taken over by the National School Board. School records from this period describe the schoolroom as measuring 36 feet by 21 feet — consistent with the earlier Townland Valuation dimensions — and note it stood 10 feet in height. The school then consisted of a single room containing six desks and 13 forms. The teachers at this time were Henry Fenn, a Dubliner appointed as principal in 1867, and his wife Thomasina, a former dressmaker who gave instruction in needlework for two hours each day. An average of 30 boys and 28 girls attended, described as nearly all the children of farmers in comfortable circumstances within the catchment. Henry Fenn continued to teach at the school until his retirement in 1904.

In 1907, following the gifting of the schoolhouse, teacher's residence, and adjoining land to the Armagh Diocese Board of Education by the landlord Captain Roger Hall, the schoolroom was reported to have been "thoroughly renovated." The building of a new teacher's residence and the making of a new classroom were said to be under consideration at this time. These works were completed by 1908, radically altering the appearance of the schoolhouse. A separate teacher's house was built to the west of the schoolhouse, and the former teacher's residence was incorporated into the schoolhouse to provide an additional classroom, carried out using local expenditure rather than central funding. These changes are recorded in both valuation records and National School Board records.

Following partition in 1921, national schools in Northern Ireland became public elementary schools, and the building appears in valuation records for a period as "Latt Public Elementary School," after the townland of Latt in which it stands. Following the Education Act of 1947, it became a primary school, generally known from that point as Mullaglass Primary School. The fourth edition Ordnance Survey map captions it as Mullaglass County Primary School.

Map evidence suggests that a front porch at the west end of the building — at the location of the former teacher's dwelling — was removed at some point between 1956 and 1979. A historic photograph held by the school, most likely dating from around 1960, shows the building without the entrance porch but with considerably smaller windows than it has today, along with an additional window at lower ground-floor level to the west end. This window was subsequently removed and the remaining windows substantially enlarged. Further buildings have been added to the school site since 1979 in line with modern requirements for primary education.

Despite the considerable alterations over the years, photographic, cartographic, and physical evidence — including the irregular fenestration and the gothic pointed arch window to the east elevation — suggests that the building was never fully rebuilt and retains fabric from the original early 19th-century schoolhouse. The school remains in use as Mullaglass Primary School and is in the ownership of the Southern Education and Library Board.