This article is from page 37 of the 2009-06-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 37 JPG
PUPILS past and present turned out to Doonbeg National School last Fri- day for the official opening of the new school. Clare TD Tony Killeen officially did the honours of opening the €1.1 million school while Bishop Willie Walshe was also on hand to bless the new building.
The new school features large new classrooms, a general purpose room, a staff room, and secretary’s of- fice and a state of the art computer room.
“The computer room was funded in the main by the Doonbeg Golf Club society who provided us with 12 com- puters, laptops for each teacher, an interactive whiteboard and they even put in the furniture for the room as well. Local woman Connie Killeen was very instrumental in getting that off the ground,” said Principal, Mary Egan. “The also provided funding for a computer teacher to come to the school and each class get an hour a week of computer classes. It’s a great advantage for the children to get. Our sixth class pupils going into second- ary school would be more advanced than most of the children already in secondary school.”
The new school, which was com- pleted more than two years ago, was made possible as a result of a €600,000 Government grant as well as the proceeds from the sale of the old school building.
That building served the communi- ty well for more than 100 years, but had become too small and there was no room to extend or for a play area. The school has a long standing trad1-
tion of speaking Irish stretching back to its founding
‘The school is very much the heart of the community and it was good to see so many local people at the open- ing. I am a great believer in keeping
those links between the school and the community in place,” said Mary.
“We have always been very in- volved in things like the Tidy Towns and children take part in arts compe- titions run by the drama festival or
Willie Keane Festival. It’s important to be part of the community.”