St Dallan’s is Cushla Lavery’s workplace and Davy McGeown’s school. Its importance lies in the collision between her role as his teacher and her growing commitment to his family: what begins as support for a pupil becomes grounds for the school to remove her from her post, making the institution a focal point of the novel’s conflict between personal care and professional belonging.

School and Community

Cushla is identified to the McGeowns as Davy’s teacher, and Betty says she has been very good to the family. That connection carries her concern beyond the classroom and into the household, where she becomes a familiar source of practical help. The school is therefore present not only as a place of employment but as the point of contact that links Cushla to Davy and his family.

Safeguarding and Authority

The account of St Dallan’s also recalls how concerns about children were handled before Cushla’s time. When a boy arrived at school with signs of harm, Bradley sent Slattery to speak privately with the child’s father and made the father swear on a Bible not to approach the boy again. In a separate case, a nurse who checked children for health problems reported an army captain’s wife; Bradley had not made the report. These details place the school within a network of adult oversight, but also distinguish between different responses to risk. Cushla understands Bradley’s later attention to her conduct not simply as concern for the McGeowns, but as a judgment of her own position.

Cushla’s Removal

Bradley tells Cushla that the school has serious concerns because she befriended a family she had been advised to avoid and sheltered them even after one member was arrested for murder. He invokes delicate community relations and says her position on the staff is no longer tenable. Rather than describe the decision as a dismissal, the school proposes that she take a year off; Cushla recognizes the consequence and asks whether she is being sacked. The exchange turns her care for the McGeowns into a professional liability within the school.

Departure and Aftermath

Later, as Cushla drives away, she glances toward St Dallan’s and recalls that a girl from Ballyclare called Bride has replaced her. The brief reference confirms that the proposed absence has become a real loss of her place at the school. St Dallan’s thus marks both the structure Cushla has served and the community institution from which she is excluded after choosing to remain involved with the McGeowns.