Volleyball All-Ireland Semi Finalists
Well done to our first and second year volleyballers who are through to an All-Ireland semi final after a great performance against St. Brigids in our sports hall last week. The girls had a strong start to the first round starting off with a score from captain Helen Cordoso. The girls kept up a strong side securing a 5 point lead, when St. Brigids fought back and leveled the score. The girls fought hard and finished the first round with a two point win. The girls started off the second round strong with scores made by Katie Foley, Ivannah Looby and Laura McSharry to gain a strong advantage. The girls finished out the second round with an excellent lead and gained themselves their position in the All Ireland semi final.
Thanks to coach Ms McHugh and comhgairdeachas libh go léir.
Pictured are the first and second year volleyball team who are through to the All-Ireland semi final.
Back row L- R: Ellen Murray, Katie Foley, Rachel Campbell, Ivannah Looby, Laura McSharry, Rebecca Clarke
Front row L – R: Helen Cordoso, Fiona Duda, Mattea Cox, Hannah O’Connor, Mia Nally
All-Ireland Final Bound!
Congratulations to our senior footballers after they achieved a comprehensive win over St Mary’s Grammar school of Magherafelt, Derry in Lisnaskea, Fermanagh last Thursday afternoon. Despite the challenging weather conditions the girls clocked up an impressive 5:09 to St Mary’s 0:08 on the scoreboard and now await an All-Ireland final. Well done to the entire panel and to your coach Mr O’Reilly.
Our Senior Football Panel with coach Mr David O’Reilly after qualifying for the All-Ireland final last Thursday.
Junk Kouture National Finalist
Wednesday and Thursday, March 8 and 9, saw the next generation of Irish up-and-coming eco-conscious creators, innovators, and fashion designers at the 2023 Regional Finals of Junk Kouture, the world’s largest sustainable fashion competition for youth. Congratulations to Aisling Harlow of Transition Year who is one of 70 entries to qualify for the national finals. Her design My Rococo Royalty impressed the judges out of 1,200 haute-couture designs made from 100% recycled materials by post-primary students in Ireland. From this, 300 designs were shortlisted and aired on Junk Kouture’s YouTube and TikTok channel for the 2023 Regional Finals. Congratulations to you Aisling and to your teacher Ms Kilcommins. Best of luck in the final.
Aisling Harlow in her design ‘My Rococo Royalty’ which has qualified for the Junk Kouture National finals.
International Women’s Day 2023
International Women’s Day is marked annually on March 8th and is a global day of celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality and equity. As the one and only all-girls school in Co Roscommon, we acknowledge March 8th as a celebration of women and their achievements and also to highlight where more needs to be done. We extended International Women’s Day to International Women’s Week. The 5th year Politics and Society students under the guidance of their teacher Ms Claire Burke took the lead this year with a number of displays in school. Elleanor Foxe with her art teacher Ms Frances Kilcommins created a display featuring women of varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds to mirror our school population. A further display board (led by Lucia Fabbi) highlighted this year’s IWD’s theme #Embrace Equity with this interesting and thought-provoking example: Equality is giving everyone a shoe; equity is giving everyone a shoe that fits. A presentation over the school intercom by the 5th year PolSoc class on Wednesday drew attention to a wide range of issues and included a brief history of International Women’s Day, the 1911 ‘Bread and Roses’ campaign, the difference between equality and equity, the marriage bar in the civil service that only ended in 1973, the gender inequalities that continue to exist in political representation, how care work is highly gendered, the UN SDG 5 on gender equality and global examples of where gender inequality is seen as a normal part of society. We caught up with a number of past pupils who joined us to mark International Women’s Day with video calls from Dublin, Paris, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, London, Abu Dhabi, Sydney and San Francisco. It was lovely to hear from Emma O’Carroll who works in luxury fashion in Paris, Natalie Spellman in Luxembourg, Mairéad Cleary who works with Newstalk and Today FM, Kate McManus in Sydney, Róisín Hunt in San Francisco, Jennifer Hannon in Abu Dhabi, Emma Gibbons studying Business and French in Paris, Emma Mannion on tour in Germany with Riverdance, Ailbhe Farrell in Frankfurt as part of Global Business and German and working on an internship in the German stock Exchange and Eimear Neilan in London. With their best wishes for International Women’s Day, it was a joy to listen to their wonderful memories of their time in Meánscoil Muire gan Smál and how they were inspired by their time here as students. In this week, not only did we celebrate women’s achievements generally but we celebrated our phenomenal Senior Cup winning rugby players and also our All Ireland champion junior camogie players. Meánscoil Muire gan Smál, we are Mnásome!
Pictured from the fifth year Politics and Society class are Emma O’Farrell, Heather Cunningham, Anna Higgins and Aisling Brennan.
Student Enterprise County Finals
The Student Enterprise Programme county final was held in the Abbey Hotel last week and our budding transition year entrepreneurs had six ventures on display at the event. Our representatives were: ‘Tranquilitrees’ – Ruth Cunningham and Eilis O’Donoghue, ‘Star Stitches’ – Faye Reynolds, Caoimhe Carroll and Shauna Carty, ‘Funky Frames’ – Lauren O’Connor, Bronagh Donohue, Emma Fitzmaurice and Emily Cummins, ‘Beadz Boutique’ – Zita Waldron and Deirbhile Collins and ‘Vanilla Bean Bites’ – Chloe Kenny, Kaitlin Egan and Alanna Hoare.
GAA Socks & Gloves – Alannah Sutton, Maria Bolger and Ella Donlon.
Pictured at the Student Enterprise county final were the proprietors of ‘Funky Frames’ – Lauren O’Connor, Bronagh Donohue, Emma Fitzmaurice and Emily Cummins.
Pictured at the Student Enterprise county final were the proprietors of ‘GAA Socks & Gloves’ Maria Bolger, Alannah Sutton and Ella Donlon.
Seachtain na Gaeilge
Seachtain na Gaeilge continued in style last week with many varied activities including ‘Ramhloga an Lae’, a tongue twister activity each day for junior cycle students and a Comortas Ealaine for first and second year students. On Monday and Tuesday our GP room played host to screenings of the academy award nominated movie An Cailín Ciúin for our fifth year, second year and TY students. On Wednesday, we held a Seachtain na Gaeilge TradFest organised by Mr Wallace in the Assembly Hall for all students. This concert featured an array of talented students from our student body who played, danced, sang and recited poetry in the Irish tradition. Our staff members Ms Burke, Mr Wallace, Mr Arnold, Ms Connell and Ms O’Brien also played and sang in the concert and a special guest Mr Padraig Moran, grandfather of transition year student Ciara Killeen made a guest appearance to sing a sean nó song ‘Anach Cuain’. On Thursday fifth years took part in a Trá na gCeist with Ms Kelly. Beatha teanga í a labhairt.
Heather Cunningham, Lucy Greene and Aliya Hone winners of the fifth year Trá na gCeist during Seachtain na Gaeilge last week.
Pictured at the Seachtain na Gaeilge Tradfest concert are members of our Irish Traditional Group under the direction of Mr Wallace: Eva & Carole Greene, Sophia & Cassie Doorly, Aoife & Caoimhe Mullarkey, Sarah Larkin, Aoife Connolly, Grace Maria Burgoyne, Caoimhe Brogan, Tara Hynes, Alyssa Potter, Alanna McCormack and Charlie Kilmartin-Healy.