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St. Declan’s is presented with our National Flag

On Friday 6th November 2015 the senior classes made a guard of honour to welcome Commandant Suzanne Wall and Corporal Wayne Casey of the Defence Forces (Óglaigh na hÉireann).  Commandant Wall and Corporal Casey were delivering the Irish Tricolour as part of the commemoration the the centenary of the 1916 Rising and to celebrate the Proclamation of the Republic one hundred years ago next March. 

We were honoured by a visit from two special guests – Minister Kevin Humphries Labour TD (Minister of State at the Department of Social Protection) and Lucida Creighton Independent TD and leader of Renua.

Before the visit the whole school was busy finding out what the colours on the flag mean.  We learned that the National Flag of Ireland, a tricolour of green, white and orange, is intended to symbolise the unity between people of different traditions on the island of Ireland. 

The green comes from an old flag of Ireland used more than three hundred years ago.  The orange represents the people who were supporters of King William III, who was of the House of Orange in the Netherlands.  The orange colour comes from the Anglican tradition who were interested in staying loyal to the British crown. The white represents peace and reconciliation between these two traditions.

Friendship Week 2015 – All Aboard The Friend Ship

This year the whole school worked together to create a Friend Ship based on Noah’s Ark.  Thanks to our new art teacher Clodagh for helping us to paint the Friendship and thanks to Jackie for the design.

On Friday we had a Friendship Week assembly and sang songs, told kind stories and read some poems. Shane told us about some of the kind things we said about each other:

“We all coloured an animal and then added a friendly comment underneath – Oscar is extremely polite; Jack is creative and makes up magical creatures; Cameron is good at focusing; Sophie is a kind girl and is interesting to listen to.”

 We chose James Taylor’s song You’ve got a Friend to sing at our Friendship Week Assembly this year.  The chorus goes like this:

You just call out my name, and you know where ever I am

I’ll come running to see you again

Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall,

All you’ve got to do is call,

And I’ll be there, yeah, yeah, you’ve got a friend