Planting and Growing is always part of our annual Spring Festival. Here in conjunction with our state horticultural agency "An Bord Bia" (Gaeilge for "The Food Board") we are growing potatoes,lettuce,strawberries,scallions and cabbage in the classroom and monitoring progress.

The Parade 2009 - St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day 2009.

To-day in our regional town, Tralee we celebrated the country's biggest festival ...St.Patrick's Day. Thousands thronged the streets to watch the parade which took almost two hours to pass the review stand. I include one picture here but I will later upload a slideshow on Flickr so that people can get an idea of the festivities. I also have quite an amount of video and this will also be uploaded.

Special guests here to-day was the German Ambasador to Ireland Dr. Christian Pauls and his wife. Our town is setting up a town twinning partnership with Hoechest near Frankfurt. A German delegation was in town to kick start the initiative and they certainly chose the right day. A German TV crew documented the event.

I am glad to say that Primary teachers played a major part in the day's proceedings. Teacher Mick Gaffney warmed up the crowd with his singing and guitar playing, Local Teacher Kieran Moriarty was on the review stand as an elected town counciller and Principal Teacher, Michael O'Connor of Blennerville NS. gave the military salutation.

The Sam Maguire Trophy

The Sam Maguire trophy is awarded to the team which wins the All-Ireland senior football Champioship. Sam Maguire was a famous Irish patriot who was born in Dunmanway Co. Cork. The football stadium in his native Dunmanway is The Sam Maguire Park.

When Kerry wins the All-Ireland trophy the trophy and members of the winning team go on a tour of the local schools.

Here we see students from our school celebrating with the Sam Maguire trophy and hopefully some day in the future they will star in Croke Park also.

Gaelic Football

Gaelic Foootball is the most popular sport in our region. All 32 counties in Ireland plus teams from London and New York compete in The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship each year. The final is played in Croke Park, Dublin in September. It attracts 82000 people for a totally amateur sport. In this picture past pupils of our school congratulate star Kerry footballer, John Crowley after he has helped our county Kerry win the All-Ireland. As well as being an outstanding sportsman John is a Garda.......a member of the unarmed Irish police force. He is also a school liasion police officer to Knockaclarig National School.

Ministerial Visit

The Irish Minister for Education and Science, Mr. Batt O'Keeffe TD. visited us last October as part of a Social and Cultural evening . He welcomed our Swedish e-Twinning partners to Ireland.

The swedish delegation was led by Fredrik Ollson of Vindangen Primary School in Falkoping. it was amassive occasion.

Health Promotion School

We are a Health Promotion School. This initiative was introduced by our local health region, Health Services Executive/South. (HSE-South).

It involves the health board, teachers board of management, parents and pupils coming together designing ,developing, delivering and implementing a health school plan.