placenamesNurney
An Urnaí
The school’s own record and a surviving commercial frontage document changes in education and village life.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Urnaí · Irish · main form
- Nurney · English · main form
Place & story
Two teachers around one fireplace
Nurney’s school history dates the opening of its national school to February 1853, on the present school grounds. Two teachers shared a single classroom, working on opposite sides of a central fireplace. This arrangement preceded the later building and its separate playground spaces. [2]
The school of 1915
A replacement school opened in May 1915. A high wall divided the grass playground between boys and girls. An extension in 1964 added a third classroom, two bathrooms and cloakrooms. The school’s account distinguishes these stages from the modern building developed after 2010, recording repeated adaptation of the educational site. [2]
O’Brien’s at Walterstown
The architectural inventory records O’Brien’s in Walterstown as a pair of late nineteenth-century buildings, one formerly known as Nurney Post Office. Rubble-stone fronts contrast with yellow-brick window and door dressings. A timber pubfront retains panelled pilasters, display windows and raised fascia lettering, preserving a distinct part of the village’s commercial streetscape. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Nurney. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Our School History · Scoil Bhríde, Nurney
- O’Brien, Walterstown, NIAH 11902706 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2014-05-28. How this page was prepared.