Crosspatrick has always had a strong tradition of education. The 'Education Census' of 1824 shows hedge-schools being run in the local townlands of Rathpatrick, Graigue, Bayswell and Lough, and catering for a total of 131 pupils. One of these hedge-school masters was still remembered over a hundred years later, when the Irish Folklore Commission made their now famous Schools' Collection of tradition and folklore throughout the country in the 1930s. In Crosspatrick school, one of the pupils, Margaret Grady, recorded the following from Michael Dwyer, then aged 84:

'Long ago there was a hedge-school on a field now called Judy Murphy's . The school was in a house belonging to Máire Show [Máire Seoighe/Joyce], who kept a public house. The schoolmaster's name was Neddie Doheny and his wife was Judy Murphy. Forty people used to go to the school. The master was nicknamed 'Ned the Master', and he used to teach school dancing and he was also a surveyor. The master went to Nenagh at the age of twelve as a Poor Scholar. Michael Dwyer's father went to the hedge-school.'

This Ned Doheny is the same Edmund Doheny who was recorded in 1824 as having a school in Bayswell.

With the advent of the National School System in the 1830s, Crosspatrick National School was founded in the building that had previously been in use as a Mass House (a Catholic Church in Penal Times). Here the school remained until it transferred to the present building in 1951. The old school is now a community hall for Crosspatrick.

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