Speech at the 50th Anniversary Celebrations of Our Lady of Mercy Senior Primary School
Waterford, 12th March 2015
A Dhaoine Uaisle,
A Chailiní
Tá áthas orm a bheith anseo i bPort Láirge inniu chun páirt a ghlacadh i gceiliúradh 50 bliain na scoile seo. Is mian liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl don Ró-Oirmhinneach Thomas C. Rogers agus don Seanadóir Maurice Cummins as ucht a gcuireadh dom a bheith libh inniu, agus libhse ar fad, a chailíní scoile, as ucht na fíorchaoin fáilte sin.
[I am delighted to be in Waterford today to take part in Our Lady of Mercy’s 50thanniversary celebration. I wish to thank the Very Rev. Thomas C. Rogers and Senator Maurice Cummins for the invitation to join you today, and all of you schoolgirls for that warm welcome.]
The Mercy Sisters have always had a great love of art, drama and music, and I am delighted to see that this tradition continues today. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the choir for your most enjoyable performance and to congratulate you on your recent participation in the Peace Proms in the RDS in Dublin.
Looking around me here today, it is clear that an ethos of care and welfare permeates the life of this school. This school, through your dedicated, hardworking teachers, provides you, a chailíní, with the best gift you will ever receive – a good education. Your school also offers a wide range of supports, including breakfast and homework clubs, play therapy and therapeutic support for both pupils and families and a Rainbows programme to support those children who are experiencing or who have suffered loss through separation or bereavement.
I also understand the school is part of the Green Schools Ireland Programme and that through your hard work and dedication you have obtained no less than six green flags. Comhghairdeas libh as ucht na n-éachtaí sin a bhaint amach. [Congratulations for achieving these feats.]
I believe it is important that children have an opportunity to connect with and appreciate nature and learn about how what we do can have a good or a bad effect on the environment. May I also take this opportunity to wish you well in your current project to design and develop a Sensory Garden for your school.
I know that this school has a great choice of sports for you all to play, including football, camogie, basketball and gymnastics. Sport is very important for your health, for making friends, for learning about winning and losing – and for having fun.
We are lucky in Ireland to have many wonderful women athletes, and I had a special reception for many of them just last week at Áras an Uachtaráin (the home of the President). May I encourage you all to play sports and to enjoy them and if you do, I’m sure that one day, some of you will be representing your county at Croke Park or even representing Ireland at the Olympics!
I understand that your school also has some very special workshops in science with Waterford Institute of Technology and in how to run a business. This all shows that your school is a very special school. Under the leadership of your principal, Ms Maria Doyle, and the help of the whole community, you have been able to introduce new facilities and modern technology so that the school is suitably equipped to provide a well-rounded education to all the girls.
I understand Ms. Doyle that you are retiring from your position as Principal this year to take up a new challenge as President of the Irish Primary Principals Network. I wish you every success in your new role, to which, I’m sure you will bring the same enthusiasm and commitment that you brought over the years to Our Lady of Mercy Senior Primary School.
A good education and a good school is not just about teachers and principals. Parents’ involvement is very important in a child’s education. Children achieve more when parents and teachers work together. Parents who are involved in their child’s learning and who provide a supportive home environment for their children help to encourage them to enjoy and value their learning experience.
It is certainly worth celebrating fifty years of valuable contribution to the development of generations of girls who go on subsequently to make their own mark in society. I understand that many distinguished past pupils of the Mercy schools in Waterford have gone on to do so, including past mayors of Waterford City, the distinguished actress Anna Manahan and famous fashion designer Sybil Connolly. It is Irish women such as these that will continue to be an inspiration to their community and in particular, the students of Our Lady of Mercy Senior Primary School.
Before I finish I would like to refer to the most impressive projects and displays which are showcased in your front hall. I see that over the years your school has been honoured by many famous visitors, among them Madam Maria Montessori. Madam Montessori, the world-renowned educator, twice came to the Mercy School, then called St. Otteran’s, first in 1927 and again in 1937. Because St. Otteran’s was the first school in Ireland to adopt Madam Montessori’s method of education, the school was also visited by the world famous poet William Butler Yeats who wanted to investigate this new system of learning on behalf of the government. As you all know, this year is the year we celebrate the poet’s 150th anniversary. Yeats is one of Ireland’s best loved poets and his work is celebrated all over the world. I was very interested to learn that his poem, “Among School Children” was inspired by his visit to this school in 1926.
Much like yourselves, the children he met that day must have been a very special group to have inspired the following lines by such a great writer;
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way – the children’s eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
Although the last of the kind old nuns may have left the school, and my 60th birthday has passed, I still find these lines an extremely fitting for my visit to Our Lady of Mercy today.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir agus guím gach rath agus beannacht oraibh.