NORTH CLARE’s ability to rally around its people in time of need is expected to come to the fore once again as Furglan NS launches a last-ditch fight to keep its doors open.
Furglan NS needs to have eleven pupils enrolled by September 30th in order to guarantee it remains open in twelve months. There are currently seven students at the two-teacher school.
While eleven is the present threshold that the school must meet, this figure could be altered by the Department of Education but staff, parents and the Board of Management of Furglan NS won’t become aware of such an alteration until February.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Furglan NS principal, Patricia Vaughan explained, “As of now, we have to really concentrate to getting to September 30th, that is number one for us, we sat down as a board and said we would take this one stage at a time. As of now, hitting September 30th is most important to us, if we don’t have 11 children then we’re going to go into a position where we have to wait until next February to find out how many children we did need so we’d have four months of waiting because that retention figure of 11 could possibly come to 10, 9 or possibly 8, we don’t know, we’re really going into unfamiliar territory, we have to wait until February”.
Should Furglan NS reach a scenario where it does not have eleven pupils and the threshold remains at this number by February, they will have to consult with the school’s patron, Bishop Michael Duignan. Furglan NS is the most southerly school in the Galway Diocese. “Bishop Duignan is our Patron and he will have to meet our Board of Management, if there are parents here who would want to keep the school open which I really feel there will be, our school hopefully won’t be closing because I’m very hopeful for this campaign”.
Moving into the spotlight to share the story of Furglan NS’ struggle to stay open has not been easy for Patricia or the Board of Management but she is hopeful it will prompt the public into action. “We didn’t go into this lightly and I’m very confident there are children out there, there are people out there that have children who might have said we’ll wait till next year to send them but when they here our story they may have went to a local school themselves and realise the benefits of it, nobody wants to see a small school close and nobody wants this for us. I feel we will get an awful lot of support seeing as we have put it on the table and have been honest about where we are, we have seven children and we need four more. The community of Ennistymon and Lahinch is a fantastic community, they come behind their community and we saw it this year with the level of support in the area, there is an awful lot of support for us and I’m very confident we will meet our eleven”.
From Clouna in the parish of Ennistymon, Patricia has lived in North Clare all her life. She is confident that goodwill will come to the fore and save their school. “I’m really confident this will happen for us, I know our time is limited, we’ve only a week, it is not an awful lot of time but I think the campaign will be so strong. This is different, normally schools close and then the community start saying ‘oh we didn’t realise that school was going’, people then become so upset and wonder what they could have done, I think now we’ve taken the brave move to pre-empt and all that and say we’re throwing the kitchen sink and try very hard to get there. I think people are going to be supportive, one person talking to somebody else talking to another will help. We’ve done the hardest thing which is admitting we need help, that is the hardest part, as a Board we said we needed to go outside our comfort zone, we’re putting ourselves in the spotlight but I feel it will be favourable for us, I’m very confident when I talk to you at the beginning of October that we will have our figures”.
Having experienced the closure of Furglan Chapel, the area needs to retain part of its identity by keeping the school open, Patricia maintained. “Losing our Church was very difficult for the community and for us because it is right next door, it was very difficult for us but at that stage our numbers were pretty good and up in the forties, losing the school wasn’t an issue then but now that we’re down to the wire we realise that this school is used as a polling booth, our past parents come here when we have clothes collections, fun walks, cake sales, coffee mornings, we have so many opportunities for the community to come into the school”.
A teacher for thirty years, Patricia has been principal of Furglan NS for twenty five years. “It is quite a long time, during that time I have built up great relationships with the community. We are very supportive of everything going on in the community, all the different organisations like the Community Games, the North-West Clare Agricultural Show, Credit Union, Comhaltas, the GAA to mention a few. We work very closely with Ennistymon Community School in transferring our pupils, we’re very much part of the community and an important part, we may be small but we’ve always been significantly involved in our community, our community gives to us but we give back as well, that is very important to me.
“Being principal for 25 years has given me that insight into the needs of the area, my three children came to school here, I chose to send them here even though it is not exactly my catchment area, my husband came to school here and his family came to school here, I feel very passionate and strong about it, I bring that energy and positivity to it. I am a very positive person and I am bringing all that energy and positivity, I’m care and caring, a good listener, I’m very much approachable, parents in the past can come and talk to me, I’m compassionate, I’ve empathy, I bring a lot to the table when it comes to that”.
Support for the school stems from the esteem in which the staff are held locally including Patricia, Deputy Principal Monica Dilleen, special education teacher Thomas McConigley and special needs assistant Karen Irwin. “I have a fantastic staff. Monica is my Deputy Principal, she absolutely has her shoulder to the wheel morning, noon and night. Thomas my Special Education Teacher although he is new, he is very much there for me. Having my SNA Carmel here completes what is a small team but we’re very tight. We’re very lucky that we have a good relationship because that is key to everything, if I didn’t have a good relationship with my staff I would be in trouble now, then you would know I don’t have the support but since the Board meeting on Wednesday I came to the staff and told them we were launching the campaign, that wasn’t easy and it has been difficult for me because it is exposing us to the spotlight, we don’t know what reaction we will get, I’m hoping it will get a very positive reaction, I can’t see how it wouldn’t be positive. Sometimes in rural schools, you carry a lot on your own as principal because you don’t want to upset your staff or have them carrying stress, principals carry a load and stay awake at night, worrying about the future of something they really believe in. I’m very happy in my profession and I always wanted to be a teacher, I couldn’t have asked to be anything else, it is what I wanted since I was extremely young, I’m privileged to get that chance and that my parents gave me the chance and that I got this fantastic school and made it my own with my staff, the parent body, the Board and the kids”.
Services provided at the school are plentiful and it has been chosen as the location for the upcoming short film, ‘The Parting’ which will be screened at the Dublin International Film Festival. “We’re a DEIS school, we’re DEIS rural and got the status three years ago, children in a DEIS school get a lot more supports, we get grants, we’ve a beautiful kitchen installed, we’ve a lot of different things going on since we became a DEIS school. We’ve a homework club, we’ve say yes to languages where a French teacher comes in and does French with us, we have play therapy which I’m a big believer in, we have a fundraiser every year to raise money so children can be given play therapy, we pay for twelve sessions of play therapy which is €600 per child, in the past three years six children have gone through it and that has been 100 percent funded by the Board of Management from money raised within the community.
“We’re very lucky to be so close to the sea, we’re four miles from Lahinch, from September to Christmas because our numbers are small, we bring them right the way through every week they have swimming, we feel very passionate about that because we are so close to Lahinch and the ocean it is important that our children get to swim. They have a bit of extra time with swimming. In a week’s time, we’ll have a film crew taking over our school for three days, a huge opportunity for us, all the children here will be extras on the film, casting has gone out and one of our parents Jacinta Sheeran will be the teacher in the film, it is a short-film and it will be released at the Dublin International Film Festival next February, this is such an amazing chance for our children, any child who does enrol before the 30th of September will get the chance to be an extra on the film, the crew searched all over Ireland and chose Furglan as a place, they didn’t just choose that, they looked for a long time and they saw something in us, they saw when they arrived at the door how our school is well kept, our beautiful flower boxes and they could feel positive energy coming from the school, they arrived and spent a day with us, they came back to say they wanted to do the film with us and it is a fantastic opportunity which has given us such hope”.
A big influence in Patricia’s career was the late Carmel Kenny, her teacher in Clouna NS, the Lahinch woman died in September 2024. “I went to school in Clouna NS and had a very happy childhood and experience in primary school. My teacher, Mrs Kenny for the first four years of primary school, when this job came up I was a little bit reluctant about going for it, I was a very young teacher and wanted somewhere bigger and away from home but she encouraged me to go for this job, Mrs Kenny passed away about a year ago, I always say to myself that I am so grateful to her, she really did push me to apply for this job and encourage me, I hadn’t any interest in doing so at the time because I was young and didn’t have any attachments, I had no problem moving and I wanted to move but I did apply and I got this job, I never thought about moving since because I’m so happy here”.
She continued, “Ennistymon is my home now, I live in Carhuclough, I have lived here all my life between being born and raised in Clouna, when I got married I built my house outside in Carhuclough so I’m only a mile from Ennistymon so I really do know the landscape of this area pretty well, I know people very well in this area, we’ve a great relationship with other schools in this area and we always got on very well which is very important to me because schools need each other. We’ve a very good relationship with other organisations too, I support them and they support me, it is all in it together”.
Parents interested in enrolling their children in Furglan National School can contact the school on 065 7071979 or call into the school to speak directly to Patricia.
