1916 Exhibition in the County Library

Wednesday last, the 13th of April, we went to the library to meet Michael Moylan who styles himself as the curator of 'The Musuem That Comes to You'. Within the hour he had taken us through several hundred years of Irish rebellions, in a manic whirlwind and of dress-up and whimsy, before focusing the Easter Rising. The girls got to get their hands on history and had a great time.

Grainne playing the roll of a redcoat on the lookout for croppies

Anne-Marie is on the lookout for the English Army at Kinsale

A tommy gun

A selection of the weaponry on display

Michael shows the girls how flint worked

Evelina plays the roll of a UVF member

Shantel as an Irish Volunteer

Áine plays the roll of the British Tommy

Leticia as a wounded German machine-gunner.

Laura as Countess Markievicz before her political awakening

Laura as Markievicz in the ICA

Leyza joins the IRB and infiltrates the Volunteers and ICA

Alicija gets ready for war

Ella Curran is armed and should be considered dangerous

Róisín McCabe is armed to the teeth!

Mecheile Smith is ready for slurry season

Our tour of 1916 Dublin

 

Our tour began in the acclaimed Little Museum of Dublin. The girls got to examine the life of the city, through a number of eras, by examining artefacts ranging from advertisements, to art and bric-a-brac. Afterwards we crossed the street to have our lunch on St.Stephen's Green and here is where we met our tour-guide Jack.

       Jack took us on a walking and bus tour of the city and some of the main battle sites; The Green, O'Connell St, Moore St and finally The Garden of Remembrance. From there we bussed out to Collins' Barracks and paid our respects at Arbour Hill.

      Before heading home through the Port Tunnel we had a brief stop at the Docklands, for a sandwich, where the more observant amongst us saw TV magician Dynamo walking his dog!!   

 

With Bono's alter-ego in the U2 room

Bond Villains

The U2 room

Our Countess Markievicz with the original

Bullet holes on 'Traitors' Gate' from the fighting on St.Stephen's Green

At the Cúchulann statue inside the GPO

Inside the GPO

The art exhibition in the Little Museum of Dublin

Our tour guide Jack fills us in outside the GPO

At the bullet-scarred columns of the GPO

Chilling out in the quintessential piece of 60s kitsch

The U2 room

The note written by the O'Rahilly to his wife as he lay dying in Moore Lane ,during the 1916 Rising, committed to stone

Struggling to upload some of these photos but here are a few from an enjoyable and very informative day.

The girls at Arbour Hill

Group photo at Arbour Hill

A moment of reflection

Group photo at the Garden of Remembrance





A history of Ireland in comic form

The girls in the Little Museum of Dublin

Finding out about Dublin one artefact at a time.

"Yes I said, yes I will, yes!"

enjoying some of the interactive exhibits

This month the class have been studying China. They have been learning about its history, culture, cuisine, its people and its links with Ireland. In art they have made Chinese lanterns decorated with ink and paint blossoms and have interpreted the famed Terracotta Army in clay.

 

A good resource for learning more about the Chinese and their way of life is The Story of China, a series of documentaries, currenntly showing on BBC2

Microbes

This month we have been examining the positives and negatives associated with micro-organisms.
To examine their prevalence in the environment, including our school, we took samples from around the school using swabs and agar plates.
We hope this will inform us as to the necessity of keeping hands and surfaces clean, as well as keeping food covered (and our noses when we sneeze!)

Thanks to Padraic Caffrey and Catherine Fox for providing us with agar plates

Within a week we had some startling results