Jun 17 2012
Ms. McElligott’s Newspaper Article on New School
Duíche Áille, “land of beauty,” is one of the Irish translations for Dualla, the other being “The land of cattle”, presumably because of its fertile limestone land where cattle thrive. There is no doubt that Dualla is indeed a land of beauty. On the approach from Cashel, the first view you get of it is from the hill at Ballykelly. Much of the area spreads out before you in a valley of its own. The village itself nestles between the Kill Hills to the east with its ancient settlements of forts and the famine village, and the beautiful wooded Mount O’Meara to the rear.
This is where I was so lucky to find myself teaching after moving from the hustle and bustle of London almost thirteen years ago with our young family. To this lovely area characterised by a sense of confidence and self-assuredness.
The school was a two classroom school, staffed with just the master and I, I being referred to as the mistress. Our small school had a large playing pitch to the rear, which was, as in every school, zealously guarded by the older kids, with access only sanctioned to new kids when they graduated to “the Masters Room.” A grassed area to the front served as the junior children’s football pitch, with a slab of concrete for hunts or skipping or whatever games were fashionable at the time.
Bordered on one side by the grave yard, which acts as a great reality check for me at times when I get a bit hot under the collar about silly things, and on the other side by our very patient neighbours who turn a blind eye to children running in their garden to fetch straying footballs, the odd shoe and a whole bunch of tennis balls and sliotars. To the front, a row of cherry trees which are bowed slightly due to the prevailing west wind which sweeps down the hill from the rear of the school.
The building itself had two small classrooms, children’s toilets to the front in a porch which was extended forward to facilitate them, and an adults’ toilet with a little sink complete with cold water. The boiler house out back and a bicycle shed were used for storage. That was our lot. Our lunches were taken on a large table in the yard, eaten as the children ran about. A bunch of local crows however, took particular interest in our lunch routine and often becoming the beneficiaries of unguarded lunch boxes, sometimes to the relief of some kids too busy playing or those with poor appetites.
Our school, though old, remained in very good condition thanks to the active, hands-on parents’ association, our board of management and the generous funding from our parish. Our walls and floors were revamped and freshened regularly with paint and varnish. Updating of plumbing and electrics ensured the best was provided for the children. A portacabin was purchased to provide space for visiting teachers. Not to be outdone by the building frenzy, we also decided to convert our bicycle shed to a lunch/art/science room, a marvellous addition, but much to the dissatisfaction of the local crow population and some of our picky eaters. There was no escaping those lunches now.
However, despite our best efforts the building remained difficult to heat and maintain. The traditional thick walls made it difficult to get adequate sunlight in to some areas, making it quite dark. These walls also seemed to suck in the generated heat and they would stream with dampness in cold weather, making it necessary to wash the black mould from them regularly. Keeping posters or artwork on the walls became a battle of wills, to which I eventually conceded defeat. We were also a favoured overwintering destination for successive generations of mouse families which caused quite a stir on occasions. One particular mouse was regularly seen bouncing athletically, in and out of the children’s pigeon holes in search of food, much to the bemusement of the children, who learned to keep calm and controlled if they wanted to watch such displays without alerting the mouse to his audience. A lesson in animal behaviour maybe.
Despite intense lobbying and a sustained campaign by successive boards of management, the Celtic Tiger came and went and we remained without a new extension until eventually our letter landed in an alternative grant scheme pile, and we were approved for funding for two new classrooms.
Seeing our numbers rise consistently however over the previous five years, we had a dilemma on our hands. Go with two classrooms and hope to get a further extension when necessary, or grasp the nettle and build three rooms, making our grant stretch by cutting out the extras to achieve the three. We went for the latter and together with an incredibly tight rein on our spend and the huge generosity of our parish, the board of management have achieved its aim, to provide our parish with a wonderful modern school. Indeed it was not all plain sailing. Many meetings went into the late hours. Parents moved the whole contents of our school in trailers, boots, vans etc. twice. Once to the temporary building and again to the new school. They dug out percolation areas, stored furniture and equipment, cleaned the new building, and offered their expertise and help. They were there all the way.
Opening my article, I referred to Dualla as a place characterised by a sense of confidence and self-assuredness. An area where many families have been lucky enough to remain for generations, and where many of its young people return to bring up their own children in familiar surroundings. This stability and continuum give its people this self-assurance, making a confident people, rooted to place, not overly impressed by the smoke or mirrors of modern society. This is the place to which I was lucky enough to bring my young family to be educated and I am glad to say this sense of confidence and self-assurance has rubbed off on them also.
Friday the 15th of June will be a very proud day for all of us as we open our new school officially in Dualla. It is a chance to congratulate each other on a huge achievement, a chance for past pupils and families to come and see what we managed to do with the lovely school they preserved and maintained until we were lucky enough to be granted funding to improve it. A new school building is a wonderful asset to the esteem of a community, but it is the community which access the school which give it its character and atmosphere, and though we changed to a modern new building that lovely atmosphere of our old school remains unchanged in the new.
