St. Joseph's Primary School is a large urban primary school which caters for girls from junior infants to sixth class and boys from junior infants to first class. At this stage the boys transfer to St. Colemans’s B.N.S. St. Joseph’s Primary School caters for in and around 300 pupils. St. Joseph’s Primary school is situated in Macroom town near St. Colman’s Parish Church. St. Joseph’s Primary School first opened in 1865 by the Sisters of Mercy. The present school was opened in 1974. The school is under the patronage of the Bishop of Cloyne. The school is a Catholic school with a Catholic ethos. We do however welcome pupils from different religious backgrounds.