Celebrations have been in full flow at St. Joseph’s Secondary School in Rochfortbridge over the past number of days, thanks to the school’s double win at a prestigious schools competition in Cork last week.
The school was the only school in Ireland to win two of eight awards at the ‘Decade of Centenaries’ All-Island History competition, which was held in University College, Cork, last Thursday, 14 May.
St. Joseph’s achieved a notable double this year when both projects submitted by Transition Year history classes 2 and 3 claimed first place in the country in both of the categories for which they were entered.
The competition invited primary and post-primary students from across Ireland to assess the impact of a particular event or person from any aspect of Irish or international history. There is a specific category focusing on the ‘Decade of Centenaries’, 1912–1922. Eight winning projects were selected, from approximately 200 entries, by a three-person panel chaired by the School of History at UCC.
In the category listed as a ‘Local or Regional Issue’, the TYP 2 class submitted a Project titled ‘The Institute and the Education of Deaf\Mute Girls in our School, 1892-1940: Our Industrial Revolution’. This project examined in great detail both the educational and practical skills received by the students of this unique school and how their produce such as lace and linen work was sold locally in order to finance the educational aspect of the school.
The judges in their submission were particularly taken by the educational aspect of the school and how these girls were eventually taught “by degrees of patience and kindness to eventually be able to write questions or frame answers on a piece of paper or a blackboard”.
In the category listed as ‘The Decade of Centenaries’, the TYP 3 Class submitted a Project titled ‘When the Black and Tans Came Calling to our School: Our Earliest School Inspections, 1920-1921’. This project with a much shorter time span succeeded in portraying the fears that the local community in Rochfortbridge and particularly the Sisters of Mercy at St. Joseph’s experienced during the Irish War of Independence. The judges in their submission particularly recognised a very comical incident in this project in relation to a “round-up” of IRA suspects in the Parish when the Black and Tans somehow unknowingly managed to “capture” Colonel Edward Joshua Cooper who had previously fought in many of Britain’s earlier wars and was a former member of the Royal Fusiliers, City of London Regiment!
In the prize-giving ceremony held in the Aula Maxima at University College Cork, the Transition Year students were awarded their prizes by the Minister of Education, Jan O’Sullivan TD, who congratulated all of the students, and their teachers, for their achievements: “These wining projects are a credit to all of the students and teachers involved. You have brought history to life and the stories you have unearthed add to our understanding of what happened in our country a century ago.”
The ceremony was also attended and addressed by Mr Michael B. Murphy, President, University College, Cork, Professor David Ryan, Head of the School of History UCC, Ms Deirdre Roberts, Marketing Executive, Mercier Press and Mr Tommy Graham, Editor, History Ireland.
