The Abbey National School
- The Abbey was the first National school to be erected in Celbridge in 1849. It consisted of two classrooms, one for males and the other for females. Each school was completely independent and each had its own playground, dry toilets and fuel shed.
- The school was opened in the aftermath of the Great famine and at that time the struggle for existence took priority over education. Many children attended school irregularly and tended to drift into employment at an early age.
- During the period 1870 - 1880 some of the boys spent only half of each day in school and worked during the other half in the local mill. They were known officiallly as "half time pupils".
- Most parents could not afford to buy school books and written work was done on slates using slate pencils.
- The Abbey School is now known as Scoil na Mainistreach.
