Walk to the well to celebrate St Brigid
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Phil, Sgt Martin and Izzy before the walk. Thomas GibbonsImage 2 of 8
Amy, Deirdre and Skyler at St Brigid’s school. Thomas GibbonsImage 3 of 8
Ray (SNA) with Adam. Thomas GibbonsImage 4 of 8
Simon at St Brigid’s in Mullingar. Thomas GibbonsImage 5 of 8
Abbie, Alice and Bernie on Wednesday morning. Thomas GibbonsImage 6 of 8
Kyle, Curtis, Gerry and Hugo took part in the walk. Thomas GibbonsImage 7 of 8
The start of the walk to St Brigid’s Well. Thomas GibbonsImage 8 of 8
Laura (deputy principal) with Jo (principal). Thomas GibbonsSíofra Grant
The paths along Harbour Street in Mullingar were flooded with high-vis jackets and multicoloured school bags as schools from across the Mullingar area made their way to St Brigid’s for their annual walk in honour of the saint, last week.
Students from the parish schools lined up in the yard chatting excitedly ahead of their walk, and thankfully the weather was mild and everyone was in high spirits.
It wasn’t long before the students of St Brigid’s emerged and the walk began. “It’s basically to celebrate St Brigid and the mighty woman that she was,” said Jo Jordan, principal of St Brigid’s School. “She’s obviously the patron of our school so St Brigid is important in the daily lives of the students and staff in our school.”
Staff and students at St Brigid’s have built a rapport between themselves and other local schools over the last few years.
“It’s also a gathering of the community because the parish and the community are very good to our school, so we’re trying to make our parish more inclusive by linking up with the other schools as much as we can.
“This year we’ve also invited the All Saints National School students as well because they joined up with our school for an inclusion project this year which was a great success.
“So I think we have a total of 257 children from other schools, plus our 93 children.
“It seems to grow year on year which is great and thank God we’re blessed with the weather today. The Child of Prague was out this morning,” said Jo laughing, “so hopefully it will stay dry for them.”
It did for the most part, with just a few drops of rain as the children and their teachers returned to the school, where snacks and soup were waiting for them.
“We have treats for all the students from the other school to bring back to their school with them and we have homemade soup and bread for our students.” The relationship the school has built with others in the community extends to their students. “It was lovely because we’d had students from All Saints here before Christmas for an inclusion project and as they arrived they were asking for the students in our school who they were working with.
“We had another group from St Colman’s school who were asking for some of the kids they played football against last summer in our football league so it’s great their building little connections across their community instead of just inside their own schools.”