Five acres of land were leased in Castletowncooley, in the district known locally as ‘Rourkestown.’ The District Inspector reported that the school was to be ‘on a by-road from Riverstown to the mountains.

The new school was to be for eighty boys and eighty girls. The people were willing to subscribe some money so the Board granted them seventy-three pounds and ten shillings, and the building was ready by December 1842. Its first teacher was Thomas Levins, who had been trained in Dromin National School. His father, Peter Levins, had been running the small cabin school down the road in Castletowncooley for about ten years. 

The old school, built in Rourkestown in 1842 has now been recycled as the O’Brien family home. It was replaced by the new Mullaghbuoy National School further up the road nearer the chapel in 1967.