Skip to content
Fingal, County Dublin

Coding classes in Fingal

What are the best coding classes in Fingal?

Fingal is not a county, though it is often called one: it is one of the four local authorities that make up County Dublin, covering about 450 square kilometres from Blanchardstown and Castleknock up through Swords to Balbriggan and the coast. Its population was 330,506 at the 2022 census, and 159,994 of those people live inside the Dublin city and suburbs built-up area, which is roughly half of Fingal. It is young: Balbriggan's average age of 33.6 is among the lowest anywhere. We teach learners aged 6 to 67 live online at a fixed weekly hour, in ability groups of five to ten or one to one, with a free first lesson and then USD 100 a month in a group or USD 150 privately.

Fingal County Council publishes 419 datasets, far more than most Irish local authorities, and one of them counts visitors to Newbridge House in Donabate. It has 31 rows and looks completely ordinary. Add up its visitor column and you get 379,230 people. The true figure is 189,615, exactly half, because three of those 31 rows are not months at all: they are totals for 2021, 2022 and 2023, sitting in the same column as the data they summarise. Sum everything and you count every visitor twice, and the answer is not obviously wrong, because nothing about it looks odd. That is the most common way a published total goes astray, and it is almost invisible unless you look at the rows themselves. This page teaches that habit, on a file from the learner's own council.

Facts last verified 16 September 2026. Teaching is online; no Fingal branch is claimed.

Course picks for Fingal

Four courses for north County Dublin

Choose on what the learner wants to build rather than on age. Every card opens with a lesson that is free, real and taught by the person who would take the course.

Browse the course atlas for more than one hundred options and use the coding roadmap to check prerequisites.

The four we are known for

Python, AI, vibe coding and agentic coding

These run underneath everything above. Every one is live and online, placed by ability rather than by age, and the first class is free.

Fingal today

One of four Dublin authorities, and young with it

Because the statistics office publishes its Dublin commentary for the whole county at once, this page uses only figures that carry Fingal as their own row.

Fingal in Census 2022, from CSO tables that name Fingal directly
MeasureFigure
Population330,506
Living inside the Dublin city and suburbs built-up area159,994, roughly half of Fingal
Largest electoral areaHowth and Malahide, 69,960, then Swords at 48,739 and Castleknock at 47,149
Smallest electoral areaBlanchardstown and Mulhuddart, 40,022
Densest electoral divisionBlanchardstown and Blakestown, 5,576.3 people per square kilometre
Area, on the council's own descriptionAbout 450 square kilometres

The towns

Swords is the largest at 40,776, then Balbriggan at 24,322, Malahide at 18,608, Rush at 10,875, Portmarnock at 10,750, Skerries at 10,743, Donabate at 9,669 and Lusk at 8,806.

Young and old ends

Balbriggan has an average age of 33.6, among the youngest towns in the country, while Malahide sits at 40.5 and Swords between them at 36.2.

The name

The council explains it plainly: Fingal comes from Fine Gall, the land of the fair-haired stranger, a reference to the Vikings who settled here.

Two notes about the numbers. Blanchardstown does not appear as a town in the census list at all, because it is administered across two electoral areas rather than existing as a single settlement, so no single Blanchardstown population is quoted here. And the census town list labels Fingal's towns as County Dublin, a naming convention that predates the 1994 split into four authorities. It is not an error, and it is a good early lesson in how administrative history survives inside data long after the administration has changed.

Computer Science in Fingal schools

Six of the first-phase schools were here

Fingal did better than anywhere else we have written about when Leaving Certificate Computer Science began in September 2018.

Two in Swords

Loreto College and St Finian's Community College, both in the largest town in the authority, were on the January 2018 list.

One in Rush, three in Dublin 15

St Joseph's Secondary School in Rush, plus Coláiste Pobail Setanta in Phibblestown, Le Chéile Secondary School in Tyrellstown and Luttrellstown Community College in Blanchardstown.

The one we checked and excluded

Mount Temple Comprehensive has a Malahide Road address, which sounds like Fingal and is not: the school sits in Dublin 3, in the city. Road names are not addresses.

That last point is the sort of thing worth teaching early. We placed each school by comparing its address against the council's own published list of Fingal areas, which names Balbriggan, Baldoyle, Balgriffin, Ballyboughal, Blanchardstown, Castleknock, Clonsilla, Donabate, Garristown, Howth, Loughshinny, Lusk, Malahide, Mulhuddart, Naul, Oldtown, Portmarnock, Rush, Santry, Skerries, Sutton and Swords. Guessing from a road name or a postal district would have put at least one school in the wrong place, and a learner who has done this exercise on their own neighbourhood will never again assume that two addresses containing the same word are near each other.

What we cannot tell you about Fingal

The statistics office publishes no Fingal-specific figures for citizenship, working from home, commuting mode or third-level education. Only a Dublin-wide release exists, covering all four authorities together. Rather than pass those off as Fingal numbers, we leave them out and say why. An absent figure, clearly labelled, is worth more than a borrowed one.

Signature project

The sum that comes out exactly double

Thirty-one rows, one column, and an answer that is precisely twice what it should be. This is the most valuable half hour a new data learner can spend.

What we measured in the published file, read 16 September 2026
MeasureFigure
Rows in the file31
Rows that are actually totals rather than months3, labelled for 2021, 2022 and 2023
Sum of the visitor column across all 31 rows379,230
Sum across the 28 genuine rows189,615
The difference189,615, which is the correct total counted a second time
Rows recording zero visitors because the site was closed4, during 2021 closures

Why totals as rows are so dangerous

They look identical to data. No tool warns you, the column adds up cleanly, and the answer is wrong by a factor that depends entirely on how many total rows are present.

Coordinates in the wrong units

The file carries an X and Y pair in projected metres, and a separate latitude and longitude in degrees. Plot the first pair on a map and your point lands in the ocean.

Zeros that mean closed

Four months show zero visitors because the house was shut during Covid restrictions. Averaging without excluding them understates a normal month and tells you nothing true about demand.

Two more things hiding in the same file

The reporting granularity changes partway through: months in 2021 and 2022, quarters from 2023 onwards, with no column marking the switch, so an unwary comparison puts a three-month figure beside a one-month one. And the visitor column's own name is misspelled in the published header, which matters more than it sounds: any code that refers to the correctly spelled name simply fails to find the column, and a learner who assumes the tidy spelling will spend an hour debugging their own perfectly good code. Published files carry their authors' typing, and the fix is always to read the header rather than to assume it.

The output is a corrected total, a note of which rows were excluded and why, and a short list of everything else found. The number is less important than the list.

Before you sum a column

Five checks against double counting

These take a minute each and catch the errors that survive into finished reports.

Checks worth running on any table you plan to total
CheckWhat you look forWhat it catches
Read the rows, not just the headerLabels like total, subtotal, all or year-end inside a data columnTotals counted as data
Sanity-test the scaleWhether the answer is suspiciously round, or suspiciously doubleExactly the fault on this page
Check units before mappingWhether coordinates are degrees or metresPoints landing in the sea
Ask what a zero meansWhether zero is a real measurement or a closureAverages dragged down by shut doors
Check the grainWhether every row covers the same length of timeQuarters compared with months

Younger learners

A scoreboard game that accidentally includes its own total, so the score doubles and the players have to work out why.

Teenagers

The real council file in Python: find the three total rows, correct the sum, check the coordinates and write up what changed.

Adults

The same checks on work spreadsheets, where subtotal rows pasted into data are the single most common cause of a wrong figure in a report.

We have no connection with Fingal County Council, daa, Malahide Castle, Newbridge House or any school named on this page. Population figures come from Central Statistics Office tables that name Fingal directly, and the dataset measurements are ours, taken from the council's published file under its Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Living in Fingal

An airport, a castle and a coast road

Fingal holds the country's main airport, its own shoreline and a great deal of the Dublin commuter belt.

Dublin Airport

The largest single site in the authority. Its operator states an ambition to deliver "coherent, sustainable and plan-led growth of Dublin Airport to 40 million passengers per annum", which is a planning aim rather than a current figure.

Malahide Castle

At K36 YP65, home to the Talbot family for over 800 years, and now one of the busiest visitor attractions in north County Dublin.

Newbridge House

At K36 VR90 in Donabate, a Georgian villa designed by James Gibbs and built from 1747, whose demesne passed to the council in 1985 under an unusual agreement leaving the family's collection in place.

A tidy piece of arithmetic

Unlike several counties we have written about, Fingal's parts add up perfectly: its seven electoral areas sum to exactly 330,506, and so do its 42 electoral divisions. When a hierarchy reconciles on the first attempt, that is worth noticing too, because it means you can use either level with confidence.

Learning ladder

From a scoreboard to a total you can defend

Ages are a guide. Placement is decided in the free lesson by what the learner can actually do.

Ages 6 to 10

Counting cleanly

Programs that add things up and notice when something has been counted twice.

Coding for KidsScratch Coding for Kids
Ages 11 to 13

Rows and headers

Opening real files, reading the header as published and looking at rows before trusting a column.

Python and AI for KidsMaths Through Coding
Ages 14 to 18

Totals and units

Finding embedded totals, fixing a sum, checking coordinate units and writing up the corrections.

Data Science for TeensPython for Teens
Ages 18 to 67

Automated guards

Checks that run on every new file, so a subtotal row never reaches a report again.

Python Automation CourseData and AI Analytics for Non-Programmers (Excel, Sheets, Power BI)
Coding and AI

An assistant will total this column instantly. Why should a Swords teenager look at the rows?

Because the wrong answer is exactly double, and nothing about it looks wrong.

Hand an AI tool this file and ask how many people visited. It will sum the column and answer 379,230, confidently and quickly. The three rows holding yearly totals are indistinguishable from data unless something reads their labels and reasons about what they mean. The tool has done accurate arithmetic on the wrong set of rows, which is the most dangerous kind of mistake because the output carries no sign of it.

A learner who has met this once develops the right reflex: before summing anything, look at what the rows are. It takes seconds, and it is the difference between a total you can put your name to and one you cannot.

So the case for a Fingal child learning to code in 2026 is not that the airport is up the road. It is that somebody in every organisation has to be able to say that total counts itself, and show which three rows did it. The longer argument is in why a child should still learn to code in 2026.

Delivery

Balbriggan, Swords, Blanchardstown or Howth

Fingal stretches from the edge of the city to the north county coast, and its traffic is famous. A class that arrives at the house avoids all of it.

No run to a centre

A learner in Garristown and one in Castleknock join the same class, which no room in either place could arrange on a weekday evening.

School words as used here

Junior Cycle, Transition Year, fifth and sixth year, spoken the way Fingal schools speak them.

The free lesson teaches

A real task, a real teacher, and a clear recommendation at the end. Nobody is asked for card details to take it.

Sorted by ability

Five to ten learners at one level, gathered from Fingal and several other countries so that each level meets at a sensible hour.

A fixed hour weekly

Usually two lessons a week, around eight a month, with mid-terms, exams and holidays planned around in advance.

The clocks, briefly

Indian time holds steady while Irish time moves, so our teachers are four and a half hours ahead in summer and five and a half in winter.

A young population, and what it needs

With Balbriggan among the youngest towns in Ireland at an average age of 33.6, Fingal has a great many primary-age children arriving at once. Our youngest classes start at six with block coding, which is the right entry point for exactly that group.

Fees

What classes cost in Fingal

The price, in three lines.

First classUSD 0

One full lesson at no charge, ending with a level named and a course recommended.

Group tuitionUSD 100

A month of classes, normally eight, shared with five to ten learners of similar ability.

Private tuitionUSD 150

The same month of classes, with the teacher working with a single learner.

Billing is monthly in US dollars at the one rate charged outside India, so Skerries pays what Mulhuddart pays and there is no euro list. Nothing is charged until the free lesson has produced a course and a weekly hour, and pauses, missed lessons and format changes are set out on the pricing page.

Reviews

Six Google reviews from our families, unedited

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews. These are real reviews, reproduced as written.

★★★★★

"The one step solution for my son. Modern Age Coders make learning coding so simple that kids love it. The teachers explain complex concepts clearly with practical exercises and interactive content."

Ria Mukherjee

Parent

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."

Samriddha Mondal

Student

★★★★★

"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."

Vansh Agarwal

Student

★★★★★

"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."

Sonam Oswal

Parent of Dhairya

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."

Sonu Goyal

Parent

★★★★★

"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."

Ritu Kedia

Parent

Free placement class

Tell us about the learner

We match the first task to the person: a counting game for a young child, a first file opened in code for the middle years, or the doubled total for a teenager.

+353

FAQ

Fingal coding class questions

What families in north County Dublin ask.

Is Fingal a county?

Not exactly. It is one of the four local authorities that make up County Dublin, covering about 450 square kilometres from Blanchardstown and Castleknock north to Balbriggan and the coast.

How many people live in Fingal?

Census 2022 counted 330,506, of whom 159,994 live inside the Dublin city and suburbs built-up area. Swords is the largest town at 40,776.

Which Fingal schools first offered Leaving Certificate Computer Science?

Six were on the January 2018 first-phase list: Loreto College and St Finian's in Swords, St Joseph's in Rush, and Coláiste Pobail Setanta, Le Chéile and Luttrellstown Community College in Dublin 15.

What is the Fingal data project?

Students take the council's Newbridge House visitor file, discover that three of its 31 rows are yearly totals, and find that the obvious sum of 379,230 is exactly double the true 189,615.

Why are there no citizenship or commuting figures on this page?

Because the statistics office publishes none for Fingal alone. Only a Dublin-wide release exists, covering all four local authorities, and we will not present those numbers as Fingal's.

Why do census tables call Fingal towns County Dublin?

It is a naming convention that predates the 1994 division of the old county into four authorities. The label is historical rather than wrong, and it is a good example of administrative history surviving inside data.

What hours do classes run?

Afternoons, evenings and weekend mornings. Our teachers are four and a half hours ahead of Irish time in summer and five and a half in winter, and the weekly slot is fixed during the free lesson.

Is there a Modern Age Coders classroom in Fingal?

No, and we never suggest one. All teaching happens live over video, with no premises in Ireland at all. A learner needs a laptop or desktop, sound that works and a steady connection, and the number on this page belongs to India.

What do Fingal coding classes cost?

The first lesson is free. After that, a shared place costs USD 100 a month and brings two live lessons a week, roughly eight monthly, with five to ten learners; one-to-one on the same schedule is USD 150 a month. Course, format and hour are agreed before payment.

How many learners are in a group?

Five to ten, grouped by ability, pace and goal rather than by age or address. Where nothing suitable runs at a workable hour, we teach one to one instead.

Explore Ireland

The rest of Dublin, and beyond

The city itself is at Dublin, and south of it Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has its own page. Inland, County Meath and County Kildare border Fingal's commuter towns. Everything is gathered on the Ireland coding page.

Free Fingal classCall +91 91233 66161

Keep exploring Modern Age Coders

Coding classes in nearby places

Free resources

From the blog

Start here