Colaiste Ris makes plays for new rooms

COLAISTE Ris announce the first phase of a major extension programme, comprising three specialised classrooms in a total extension project which will cost £300,000.

Subject to planning permission approval, construction is expected to get underway by the end of February.

It is hoped to have the classrooms in use by this time next year, if not the start of the 1997/’98 school year.

The extension will face onto the corner of Chapel Street and Yorke Street, following the demolition of two derelict houses on the site, which the school purchased some years ago, and old dressing-rooms in the school yard.

It is costing £155,000, and will accommodate a home economics room, toilets and foyer on the ground floor, and a mechanical drawing room and a technology room on the first floor.

‘ The teachers who will use these rooms have been doing tremendous work, and getting tremendous results, while having to work in inadequate facilities,’ says principal, Proinnsias O Cuanaigh.

‘ This extension will ensure that our students have the best possible facilities.’

However, the extension is just the first phase of a larger building project planned for the school which will comprise three general classrooms, and a fourth room, either to be used as a classroom or dressing-room.

‘When these two phases are completed, a total of over £900,000 will have been spent on the school since 1986,’ the principal explains, adding that over £500,000 of this money will have come from the school’s own fundraising efforts.