The penal laws had forbidden the education of Catholics during the 18th century and because of this many schools operated secretly, often in sheltered open places. However as time went on, schools were set up by individual teachers in very poor buildings and the penal laws seem to have been ignored. Bishop Plunkett noted in 1788 that there were seven hedgeschools in Killoughey. In 1826 there were eight schools in Killoughey, some of them very close to where our school is located. There was one at Pallas, one in Mount Pleasant, one in Ballincanty and another in Clonterlough where our school is located. These were usually mud cabins in very poor condition and would often have more than fifty pupils in the one room. Most of the pupils were boys.The school at Killoughey Cross was taught by Thomas O'Rourke who had studied to be a priest and could speak Irish, English, Latin and French. Seven of his pupils became priests and two of them went on to be bishops.

The page shown here is from a copybook belonging to a John Bryan and dated 1787. It has about 80 pages of maths problems very carefully written. We don't know which of the local schools he attended. There is another schoolbook dated 1824, which belonged to Patrick Mooney of the parish of Killoughey. It was also handwritten and had 400 pages of maths. Some of the topics covered include fractions, currency exchange, the rule of three, inverse proportion and interest.