We have the extremely talented Áine O'Gorman working with us. We established a Singing Club in 2019. We applied for a project Cork County Council where Heritage in Schools Expert, Áine Brosnan, would visit us and help us compose and record an ‘ode’ to a great hero of old. The recordings would then be sent to John Spillane to judge and the winning school will receive a workshop with John to develop and perform our song. The following was our application;
“We are Timoleague National School in West Cork. We are extremely fortunate to live in an area of the country so steeped in history. Our school is in the shadow of a magnificent Franciscan Abbey that we walk past every day to and from school. This abbey was built in 1240 by Franciscan monks. This site has been inhabited by monks since the 6th century and has had a colourful history until it was raided and abandoned in the 17th century. We would really benefit from a visit with Aine to learn about the people who lived and worked here. We know that generations of children in our lovely village have played here throughout the ages. We are immensely proud that it is included in the West Cork stage of the Wild Atlantic Way. We have a very proud tradition of heritage projects- the most recent being winners in the Discover Cork Heritage project in 2017 for our project on the Timoleague Railway and in 2018 on Timoleague Castle. We have carried out phenomenal projects with the Heritage Council - a particular favourite was a study on the wildlife of Courtmacsherry Bay. We have studied various aspects of this magnificent structure - the engineering, the history etc but we have yet to compose a song about the Abbey! We have also recently established a Singing Club made up of pupils from 2nd - 6th class. This would be a wonderfully collaborative project for this new group.”
We were thrilled to learn that our application was successful. Áine Brosnan worked with the Singing Club. Áine O'Gorman then helped the children produce their wonderful song. We were invited to the County Hall in June 2019 where we performed our song for John Spillane.
