A Galway school is throwing down the gauntlet to others around Ireland this week by claiming to be the only national school to hold classes continuously in the same building for 150 years.
With a two day birthday celebration planned in a marquee beside the national school at Sylane, near Tuam, the organisers are in a race to prove before Thursday night that they are the oldest functioning national school in the State.
"While other schools may have an earlier date of establishment over their door their original buildings may no longer be used for classes. Others may have amalgamated or were rehoused in new buildings over the years," said organising committee chairman Mr John Lardner.
The principal's room at the Sylane school still has the date of its foundation, 1852, engraved on the stone over the fireplace and classes still continue in this room today, 150 years later.
"As far as the Department of Education records are concerned, we have the oldest functioning national schoolhouse in the country," stated Ms Phil Moran of the organising committee.
"But we want to cast our net wider than that, just in case there is even one school which has had the same building for a longer time."
If no other school comes forward before Thursday the Sylane celebrations will be dubbed the "oldest school in Ireland birthday party", she said.
The school was founded by Catholic landlord Thomas O'Connor Donelan and on Friday night the landlord's great-great-grand-daughter, Mrs Aisling Foster, will be a guest of honour at the launch of a social history of the area titled Sylane's Book of Memories.