Welcome to our School website,
St. Joseph’s N.S is a co-educational primary school nestled in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains. We have a current enrolment of 113 children (2024) and we're fortunate to have 8 teachers in our school.
Here on our website you will get a sense of who we are and what is important to us. Our goal is to have a school where the boys and girls can grow and learn with their friends in a happy and safe environment. We recognise that to be successful our children need support from both home and school. Parents work with us so their children can grow in confidence, with a love of learning and a determination to be the best people they can be. At Valleymount National School we are proud of our pupils and staff and the positive atmosphere they create.
Finally, I would like you to know that my door is always open and I welcome your questions, comments or suggestions. I am here to help. Thank you for supporting our school.”
— Conor Forde, Principal
History of the School:
Originally the school in Valleymount was known as the Blackditches School. School records go back as far as 1868. The following names featured in the list of pupils: Mahon, Twyford, McDonnell, Foster, and Brady. These surnames are still in existence in the area.
There was also a school in Boystown, and one in Granabeg. The school in Boystown was amalgamated with Valleymount and in June 1965 the school in Granabeg was amalgamated with Valleymount. The current school building was opened in 1979. Before that, pupils were taught in a small 2 classroomed school located where the current school parking now is.
History of the Area:
Cross (An Chrois) was the old name for Valleymount, and it means Cross-land, or land belonging to the bishop. Originally the name applied to the old Parish of Granabeg; it was here that the old road came up from Humphreystown along Blackditches and up the Togher to Wooden Cross, where it turned and made for the Wicklow Gap. Old maps refer to ‘Cross of Blackditches’ or ‘Cross Chapel in Blackditches’. The old road did not pass through what we now know as Valleymount. Valleymount was regarded in olden times as being part of Blackditches. In the listings of 1836, the church was still called Blackditches Chapel and not Valleymount.
In the 1930s the Irish Electricity Supply Board and the Dublin Water Board decided to create a reservoir in the Baltyboys area, and built a dam at the famous and magnificent waterfalls at Poulaphouca. A generating station was built, and gradually over the years 1939 to 1941, the valleys of the King’s River and the River Liffey were flooded to form the present reservoir.
An act was passed in 1936, enabling land to be acquired by compulsory acquisition in this area. Some 74 families were displaced. The dam has been in operation since 1943. The total area of land involved in the Poulaphouca reservoir is 5,600 acres. The capital cost was £1,868,000. The reservoir is sometimes wrongly referred to as Blessington Lakes. It was originally intended to extend the reservoir, taking in the valley between Granabeg and Granamore, and extending on up the King’s Valley to Knocknadruse. Surveys were carried out to facilitate the flooding but the work was never carried out.
During the first half of the 20th century, Monsignor Maurice Brown was a curate here in Valleymount and during that time, he wrote two books under the pseudonym of Joseph Brady. Both books were based on his time in Valleymount, one was called ‘Life Through a Presbytery Window’ and the other was called ‘ Monavala’. He was the brother of the late Monsignor Padraig de Brún, a world-renowned poet and Cardinal Micheál Brown, and his sister’s daughter Máire mac an tSaoi, also a world-renowned poet.
