Éacht déanta ag daltaí Coláiste Bhaile Chláir i gComórtas Beo ag Oireachtas na Gaeilge 2015
le Neasa Ní Chonghaile, Coláiste Bhaile Chláir
Mar chuid d’Oireachtas na Gaeilge 2015, d’eagraigh Beo Ireland comórtas Amhráin Nuachumtha Ghaeilge do dhaoine óga arna eagrú ag Foras na Gaeilge. Comórtas amhráin nuachumtha do dhéagóirí idir 12–18. Chun páirt a ghlacadh, bhí gá le hamhrán Gaeilge nuachumtha a thaifead agus físeán gearr a chur leis chun obair na ndéagóirí a léiriú.
Bhí amhrán álainn scríofa ag dalta sa dara bliain, Sinéad Ní Dhonnabháin, i gcuimhne a seanathair a cailleadh i Mí Meán Fómhair. Is amhrán pearsanta é agus tháinig óna croí. Déanann an t-amhrán cur síos ar na dea-chuimhní atá aici dá seanathair. Bheartaigh an múinteoir ceoil, Ms McNamara an t-amhrán a chur isteach i gcomórtas Beo. Bunaíodh banna ceoil chun tacaíocht a thabhairt do Shinéad agus cuireadh grúpa poiblíochta le chéile chun poiblíochta a dhéanamh ar an amhrán.
Sa bhanna ceoil bhí:
- Sinead Ní Dhonnabháin—gutha agus giotár
- Sarah Nic Héil—gutha agus dord giotár
- Gillian Ní Nuáin—gutha agus pianó
- Vitska Ní Maolrua—veidhlín
- Niall Ó Tormaigh—drumaí
Sa ghrúpa poiblíochta bhí Alex Rafferty, Kaitlin Kearney agus Mary Duggan.
Le cabhair Mr Callan, déanadh taifead ar an amhrán sa scoil agus cuireadh físeán 8 nóiméad le chéile. Is féidir an físeán a fheiceáil ar YouTube. Bhí feachtas ar na meáin shóisialta ar siúl ag na daltaí chun poiblíocht a dhéanamh ar an amhrán.
Sarah Nic Héil agus Sinéad Ní Dhonnabháin. Pictiúr le Seán Ó Mainnín.
Roghnaíodh Sinéad agus a cairde don bhabhta ceannais a bhí ar siúl le linn Oireachtas na Gaeilge san Citywest i mBaile Átha Cliath, ar an gCéadaoin, 28 Deireadh Fómhair 2015. Bhí ocht ngrúpa ar fad roghnaithe don bhabhta ceannais a bhí ar siúl le linn briseadh meán téarmach.
Ba í an grúpa MuirSiné, beirt chailín as Coláiste an Eachréidh, Baile Átha an Rí, Co na Gaillimhe, ar bhronnadh príomhdhuais Chomórtas BEO agus seic €2,000 in Ionad na Comhdhála le linn Fhéile an Oireachtais. Tháinig Sinéad agus a cairde, ó Choláiste Bhaile Chláir na Gaillimhe sa dara háit le seic €750. Bhí ríméad agus gliondar ar Shinéad agus a cairde. Bhí bród ollmhór ar na múinteoirí Ms McNamara, Mr Callan agus Ms Ní Chonghaile as éacht na ndaltaí i gcomórtas Beo 2015. Bhí siad san iomaíocht le Gaelcholáistí agus Coláistí Samhraidh agus d’éirigh thar barr leo. Táthar ag súil le comórtas na bliana seo chugainne cheana féin.
Cúnamh Autism Unit
by Alex Jennings, 1st Year
On Wednesday the 18th of November the students from Cúnamh were invited to the official opening of GAP (Galway Autism Partnership). We were one of six schools and day centres invited.
L–R: Grady Milandu, Brandy Milandu, Keith Duffy, Alex Jennings and Adam Concannon.
The charity were celebrating the refurbishment of their premises. The building is 42 years old and named Tígh Ronáin after Ronan Dooley, who is now 50 years old. His parents worked very hard to help children with autism in the 1980s. His mum Maisie met us at the opening.
Keith Duffy, actor and singer officiated at the event. He is a national spokesperson for autism in Ireland. He was very nice and friendly and happy to meet with us. We took lots of photos too, he asked about our school. We did some artwork for the walls of the building while we were there and had some food too. It was lovely to meet the other students and parents. The photographs will be in this week’s City Tribune newspaper Friday 27th November 2015.
Science Week 2015 at Coláiste Bhaile Chláir
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir always hosts a number of exciting events during science week each year and 2015 was no different. Astronomy night had to be postponed due to the antics of Hurricane Barney but all other events went ahead as scheduled. A particular focus this year was on Exploring STEM Careers as our 3rd year students will have to choose Leaving Certificate subjects next term and so are thinking about their future options already. This was a great success and some of the events and student reactions are recorded below.
State Pathologist Head Scientist—Laura Galligan
by Cian Newell, 2nd Year
My class got a talk from a forensic scientist. Her job was to perform post-mortems on people that were murdered, shot or died under suspicious circumstances. She talked about how you could get DNA of a person especially from a crime scene. The DNA of an attacker might gather under your finger nails and forensic scientists can take a swab and analyse it.
They might then be able to match this to a suspect that they found at the scene of the crime and it would prove you had a fight with that person. She explained that is it not as easy as on TV! I really enjoyed the talk and would like to work in this area in the future.
Science Show—Declan Holmes
by Edward Britton, 2nd Year
On Monday a nice man came in to do science with us he showed us loads of cool stuff. He showed us airplane wings said that air travels faster on top of the wing and catches just under the wings which is what makes the airplane fly. Then he got a balloon and blew it with just a small gust of air then he let it go and it went right up to the ceiling. When he added more air to the balloon and this time it didn’t go up as far—he taught us that it had more weight this time and that’s why it did not go up so far.
The last experiment he did was with a fizzy orange tablet which he put it in a small container with water. He put the lid on and shook it and after 20 seconds it blew up and went all over the place. This was my favourite experiment. He was a nice guy and really funny and show us really cool experiments so it was really fun and made my day.
CURAM, Biomaterials Lab—Claire Riordan
by Isabella Comerford Kavanagh, 3rd Year
Claire and Melody from Curam came to visit my class and we learnt about biomaterials that are used to help people during surgery. We also learnt what different designs could be used to repair different injuries.
They taught us about collagen which is a stretchy tissue and how it is made. They even showed us examples of some of the biomaterials that they work with every day. They also taught us how to repair a torn tendon using the right materials to ensure the body doesn’t reject it and so it acts like a real tendon. I found this class really fun.
Visiting Engineer—Jim Geraghty, Project Manager Medtronic
by Michael Szabat, 3rd Year
Our guest speaker was called Jim Geraghty. He was a Civil Engineer and now is working as a Project Manager in Biomedical Engineering in Medtronic. He came into our class to talk about his job, past projects he worked on and new projects he hopes to make. We first talked about the wide variety of opportunities there is in Engineering, and we saw that there are forty different types of Engineering you could study!
It was quite interesting as many didn’t know the differences between some types of engineering and he went on to talk about the perks of being an Engineer e.g. you can travel all around the world working with your job.
He also explained how you can change the direction of your career easily by doing a Masters Degree in a different area.
We then tried to guess what Engineer would be involved in making this and other projects/objects e.g. stadium = structural and civil engineer. Near the end of our time with him he showed off a new project his working on trying to build a support for an artery made out of metal which can help someone. At the end of the class we had enough time to ask a few more questions. It was great having him in as I learnt what subjects I should take myself as I’m thinking of doing Biomedical Engineering.
Galway Science & Technology Show
by Aibhe Berry, Sarah Duggan Webb, Alyssa Laffey and Zoe Coffey, 1st Year
We had a stand at the Galway Science and Technology festival in NUIG where we showed off loads of science experiments we were doing at school. We talked to all the members of the public as well as the Dean of Science Donal Leech about our projects including apps we had developed and our SciFest and BTYSTE projects. It was lots of fun and we learned a lot of new things from the other stands. We won the best secondary school there which we we really excited by. It was a really entertaining day and a good learning experience.
Well Done to Ms Eleanor Nolan who was awarded Science Person of the Year 2015 by the organisers of the Galway Science Festival for all her work promoting Science and STEM especially at Coláiste Bhaile Chláir. Maith thú!
