This article is from page 15 of the 2012-07-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
SAINT Joseph’s Education Centre in Ennis was the scene of a new programme for Channel 5 shortly before the unit closed last month under Government financial restrictions.
Staff and students were chuffed to be hosts for the television crew along with Paddy Doherty, celebrity Big Brother winner, and Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who are central characters in the production. It is being filmed also in Hungary, Spain and Malaysia.
Paddy and the entire company visited other parts of Ireland meet- ing Travellers and researching his heritage in the course of filming. In the Ennis centre, which has been for many years a dedicated facility for Traveller training and education, there were takes such as showing his culinary art in the kitchen.
Paddy and his wife of 34 years, Roseanne, live in England. They have five children and fifteen grandchildren. He says his Irish roots are part of him. The centres in Ireland for Traveller education intrigued him, arousing a desire to get involved with some of the classes.
It was an exciting day at St. Joseph’s and Paddy was very popular among staff and students.
The Channel 5 programme will be screened in September, looking at Traveller and gypsy community life. Last August, Paddy was the third person to enter the ‘Celebrity Big Brother 2011’ house. He made it to the final and was crowned winner, beating Kerry Katona.
In January of this year he appeared in a two-part Channel 5 documen tary, ‘When Paddy met Sally,’ with former Big Brother housemate Sally Bercow.
The Ennis Traveller’s Training Centre was the first in the country. It started as part of a Combat Poverty Programme in 1974. At that time, it was located in the grounds of the Holy Family School, Ennis. In 1982 the centre moved to new building at the Gort road industrial estate.
St Joseph’s, which is located in the Gort Road industrial estate, will close as a traveler only training centre on June 29. The building closed as a traveler only training centre in May.
It is intended that the building will become the first all-purpose skills unit in Ennis.