History of the school
Our school is named after Most Reverend Dr. Michael Harty, who was Bishop of Killaloe from 1967 to 1994. Bishop Harty, a native of Toomevara parish, attended the school for six years between 1928 and 1934. He was known to be a very prominent scholar during his primary years here.
The present school was initially built as a two teacher school in 1992 (then with three teachers). The old school had existed from 1903 and was deemed to be in very bad condition in 1978 by Department of Education officials. The idea of a new school was initiated at that tine. It took until 1990 for the Department of Education to give the green light. However, they only sanctioned a two teacher school, as it was maintained that pupil numbers would hardly be sustained in the then sparsely populated area. The new two teacher school opened in 1992.
This situation continued until 2005 when the Department of Education sanctioned a state of the Art building.
However our numbers increased from 68 in 2005 to 82 in 2007, which necessitated another new classroom. This was officially opened in 2009. We now have four sizeable classrooms, a large hall, a Learning Support room, a Resource room, a staff room and an office as well as a number of store rooms.
The field on which the school was built was bought by the community in 1959. Even though it is vested in Killaloe Diocese, various local groups play games here. We are delighted that our lovely pitch is of use to the community here in Ballinree. We also have Ballymackey Soccer Club next door to us and have the use of their state of the art Astro Turf facilities.