This article is from page 13 of the 2006-02-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
CARRON National School, in the heart of the Burren, received a donation of $1,500 last week to allow them upgrade their library services. The school, which has some 20 pupils, was visited by a delegation from The Irish American Partnership last Friday and presented with the money.
“It will be a marvellous help to the children because we are always trying in encourage them to read,” said school principal Martin Clohessy. “Between the library and the stuff that we take off the Internet, it is going to make a huge difference to their lives that they will be able to have an extra resource in the school that they can take home, read it and bring it back.
“With the revised new curriculum, particularly in English, we are going to increase our stock of resource book, library books and novels,” continued Mr Clohessy.
“They asked that we will use the money for library purposes, so we will convert it to euros and invest in library resource books for students. We have a library in the school already, but this will allows to increase our stock of books greatly.
The Boston based partnership has been coming to Ireland for more than 20 years, and in that time has donated more than $12 million to Irish educational and social projects. In the last four years, the partnership has visited one national school in Ireland each year, with Lisdoonvarna National benefiting two years ago.
“We go to a different area of the country each year and this year we picked Carron,” said Patrick Kittredge of the Irish American Partnership.
For Mr Kittredge and his group, the trip was not all work, however, and they took the opportunity to take in some of the sites of the area.
“There is a big social element to the trip as well. We are going to visit a lot of local sites like the Ailwee Caves and a lot of the group is going to Galway City, and we will hit a few pubs on the way,” continued Mr Kittredge.
“The other schools have told us that it has had a bit of impact, so we will keep doing it.
“Two years ago we visited the Lisdoonvarna National School and last year we were at Kill in Waterford.”