Many highlights in 20 years of Gaelscoil an Mhuilinn

Deireadh Fómhair 10, 2014

This Friday October 10, Gaelscoil an Mhuilinn is celebrating 20 years since its humble beginnings in Oaklawns with a student body of just 25.

Now, with roughly 250 children attending each year, it has grown and flourished along with the new building which opened on the Ashe Road 10 years ago.

Principal Caroline Mhic Róibín remembers when the idea of a Gaelscoil for Mullingar was first floated in the town, she was teaching in Multyfarnham, and with a strong interest in Irish, she was first interested from a prospective parent’s point of view.

“We started off in Oaklawns with 24 children in a little unit. It was a bungalow with a shop at the front and we were there for 10 years,” remembers Caroline.

“Obviously it wasn’t purpose-built for a school but that was where we started. We went from 24 pupils in the first year, the following year I think we had 50-something children, so we got a second teacher, and every year for eight years we took a full class and a teacher. When we grew to be an eight-teacher school you automatically become an administrative principal. I don’t know where the years have gone, but it’s been a huge success story.

“I can’t emphasise enough the amount of work the parents did in those early days. I remember when I got the job first, there was nothing. The school literally didn’t even have a red biro, so there was huge amount of fundraising done. It was really hard work and they were an absolutely brilliant bunch of parents, because as I say, we came from that little unit to eventually getting this school here.”

One of the biggest highlights over the last two decades was securing the new premises on Ashe Road.

“When we got this school, the day when it opened, I’ll never forget it. It’s a beautiful school, it’s lovely and bright and airy, because when we were in Oaklawns, we had seven green prefabs out the back. I mean, it was like the army, like the Curragh camp,” she laughs.

“We hadn’t a blade of grass in the school and we were starting football, so we were bussing the children down to St Loman’s and training them down there. So to get a school like this was a huge achievement.

“At the time when the site was offered to us, all around us was complete green fields, there was no Raithin, no Ardleigh.”

Securing the new premises meant Gaelscoil an Mhuilinn could work on their now legendary sporting tradition.

“The biggest highlight in sport was when our boys won the football, the Cumann na mBunscol, in Division 2. Tommy Carr and Bernard Flynn were parents in the school at the time and they were in charge of the football team. Then the girls won titles, and then our biggest sporting achievement was when we won the Division 1 boys final two years ago. That was the top. It was brilliant!”

The first children to have passed through the Gaelscoil are all now young adults and Caroline hopes that in the 20 years the school has passed on a love and respect for the Irish language.

“I hope that the view locally of Gaelscoil an Mhuilinn is that we have been a positive thing for Mullingar.”

The 20-year celebrations commence this Friday with a blessing ceremony carried out by Fr Kilmartin at noon. There will be a concert with Irish dancing, ballad singing and rock music for parents and pupils.

The festivities don’t end there, as that evening (7-8.30pm), the school will be open to past pupils and parents and anyone who can’t make it during working hours, to view old school roll books and registers and some of the 38,000 photos the teachers have captured of the children over the years.

And as it’s not a school night, everyone is invited to Clarke’s Bar on Patrick Street, where celebrations will continue.

Westmeath Examiner

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