Garden embraces its Celtic roots
STUDENTS at Presentation National School launched their Celtic Garden at the front of their school last Wednesday as part of the Eco Tribes Challenge.
Pupils in Ms Fiona White’s fourth class took on the challenge to design a Celtic Garden and were given a grant to spend on plants for the new feature at Mellifont Abbey Garden Centre in Collon.
Parents and teachers gathered at the school on Wednesday morning as the girls spoke about how they came to choose the Trinity Knot as the symbol for their garden, outlining the symbolism involved and how the trinity theme represented three tribes coming together - the school body, the association with Drogheda Tidy Towns in creating the garden and the wider local community.
‘We received a grant of €250 and we went straight to work drawing up plans and designs for the garden,’ one of the girls explained. ‘After much discussion we decided that the Trinity Knot was the perfect shape for our garden. We chose it as our garden design and also our tribe logo as we liked the threefold nature of this knot.’
They performed a play based on the myth of how the River Boyne was created and explained the long local history of Cheiftans and legends as well as the historical importance of the Boyne Valley region.
The girls also dug a second bed to use the remainder of the plants they had purchased and chose a circle shape as it reminded them of the sun which was so important to the Celtic people.
‘It also reminds us of Newgrange, built along the River Boyne. The passage of Newgrange is lit up by the suns rays on the day of the winter solstice,’ the girls explained.
Local beekeeper and President of the International Beekeeping Assoication Philip McCabe officially cut the ribbon to open the garden and congratulated everyone involved in creating the beautiful garden. He spoke about the importance of wildflowers and local fauna to help maintain the bee population and said he hopes to see beehives introduced in local schools in the future.
Barry Eaton from Louth Tidy Towns also praised the work done by all of those involved.
‘It’s great to see local schools involved in the Eco Tribes challenege. They’ve put a huge amount of effort into this project and the children really enjoyed creating the garden.’
Teacher Fiona White said: ‘It was a fantastic project, the girls learned so much about how to design a garden. It was great fun and really hands on for them, they got to do the digging for the garden and they created their own liquid fertiliser. Even researching the theme for the garden was so interesting for them, linking in with the history of Newgrange and the Boyne Valley.’