A week of awards at Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine as young environmentalists scoop major gong

IT’S AWARDS season across our county’s schools, and at Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine in Kenmare, they’ve been rewarding their best and brightest – and outside groups have also recognised some of the school’s best and brightest.

Principal Dermot Healy explained to The Kerryman that the school held its annual awards last Friday, recognising excellence across a wide range of fields, curricular and extracurricular alike.

Leaving-cert student Rachel O’Sullivan scooped the Student of the Year prize, while Siena Ryan and Kate McGann were honoured for their outstanding Junior Cert results.

Gradam Scéine, sports, and yearhead prizes were also handed out on a day co-ordinated by Chris O’Brien and emceed by Maureen Foley Hayes.

And the winning continued a little further afield the following Wednesday as eight transition-year students travelled to the capital to complete in the finals of the ECO-UNESCO’s Young Environmentalist Awards.

Oisin Hanley, Diarmuid Healy, Kate McGann, David O’Brien, Liam O’Sullivan, Kaleigh O’Sullivan-Nash, Maedbh Rochford, and Sadhbh Sheehy travelled to Dublin’s Royal Convention Centre with teachers John O’Sullivan and Patricia Holbein, and Mr O’Sullivan explained that they showcased a topical project rooted in their local community, ‘The Impacts of Unsustainable Pair Trawling in Kenmare Bay’.

Well over 250 projects entered the competition – which recognises efforts to raise environmental issues and improve the local environment – with 110 making it to the national finals, but despite that stiff competition, things couldn’t have gone any better for the Kenmare cohort.

“The team managed to place first in the overall Senior Marine Category and then went on to win the Overall Senior Winners Award,” Mr O’Sullivan told The Kerryman. “The students were very happy with the outcome of their continued efforts and will continue with the project, and they hope to get a result by getting a ban imposed on pair-trawling boats, which are over 18 meters long, within a six-nautical-mile exclusion zone around the coast of Ireland.”

Local environmentalists Rachel Hawker and John F O’Sullivan were thanked for their involvement in the project, which came through a lengthy process, including interviews by judges and individuals from RTÉ.