Carmel Naughton, Paul Reidy principal of St Joseph’s Secondary School Spanish Point, Aaron Townsend, Minister Jack Chambers TD and Martin Naughton at the 2025 Naughton Foundation Scholarship awards held at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. Photograph: Kieran Harnett
COORACLARE’s Aaron Townsend has been awarded with a Naughton Foundation Scholarship worth €25,000.
Aaron’s alma mater, St Joseph’s Secondary School, Spanish Point has also received €1,000 towards the science facilities in the school for their support of their winning student.
On Saturday, Aaron was awarded the Naughton Foundation Scholarship at a ceremony in Trinity Business School, Trinty College where he was joined by his former principal, Paul Reidy.
Founding patrons of the Naughton Foundation, Dr Martin Naughton and his wife Carmel were joined by Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation Jack Chambers (FF), TD to present winning students with their awards and cheques.
Supporting academic and innovative excellence in Irish students, the Naughton Foundation Scholarship Awards are an investment in the future of Ireland’s reputation as a country with outstanding graduates promoting the study of engineering, science, and technology at third level.
Since its establishment in 2008, the Foundation has presented over €8 million in scholarships to over 450 young people in publicly funded institutions across the island of Ireland. The scheme started in three counties and has continued to expand annually to become a nationwide scheme in 2016. There is one guaranteed scholarship (€25,000) for each participating county, with some counties awarded more than one scholarship and each scholarship is worth €6,000 for each year of a student’s three- or four-year undergraduate degree.
Townsend joins thirty seven other exceptional Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and maths.
At the St Joseph’s Spanish Point school awards in June 2024, Aaron received a leadership award from the school.
Aaron is now studying engineering at the University of Limerick. A prominent footballer with Cooraclare, he captained St Joseph’s Spanish Point to win the Clare PPS Senior A Football Championship last year when they defeated Ennistymon Community School. He was introduced for Cooraclare’s intermediates in their five point loss to Corofin in the Clare IFC final a fortnight ago. A hamstring injury saw him drop out of the starting fifteen prior to the semi-finals.
Speaking about the growth and development of the programme over the past seventeen years, Dr Naughton commented, “Both Carmel and I are delighted by the growth of this program and the incredible community of alumni who are doing extraordinary work in education, research and industry at home and abroad. Today we are delighted to welcome a new cohort of wonderful young people to join this group and to support and encourage them. When we meet these young engineers, researchers, and mathematicians, I am very happy knowing that we have invested in Ireland’s wealth creators and leaders of the future”.
