Coláiste Rís students prepare to stage Grease musical

Coláiste Rís are treading the boards again!

After a hiatus of almost twenty years, the students of Coláiste Rís are hitting the stage again with their production of the highly acclaimed musical “Grease” this May.

The last musical performance was in 1995 and the school is eager to make up for lost time with this production undertaken by the transition year students in the school. The students have been busy rehearsing since auditions in early November, under the watchful eyes of directing teachers Evan Markey and Helen McKeown. The dedication of the students to perfecting their roles and dance moves culminated in their class trip to Cork to see a professional staging of the musical in the Cork Opera House earlier this year.

Speaking about the event, transition year student Lynn Clarke-Hearty who plays the lead role of Sandy, said everyone was looking forward to the show.

“All of the transition year students are involved in the production, including the promotion of the event, the costumes and the set design so it’s a big production with everyone working as a team.”

“Learning the routines was probably most difficult for us all, as there were many moves involved, from technical lifts to dancing on our two feet. We really had to get in the groove with our dancing shoes.”

So come on down to 1950’s Rydell High School, where the familiar summer romance between Danny and Sandy unfolds in a music and dance extravaganza with performances of the most memorable and unforgettable songs from the hit movie including “You’re The One That I Want”, “Grease Is The Word”, “Summer Nights”, “Greased Lightnin” and more! Grease is the word!

Grease the Musical will be held in An Táin Theatre on the 15th, 17^th and 18^th of May at 8pm with a matinee performance on Sunday 18^th May at 3pm. Tickets are available from An Táin Theatre box office.

Dundalk IT inviting tenders for catering services

Businesses are now being offered the opportunity to tender for catering services at Dundalk IT.

Those interested in providing canteen and catering services at the college have until 3pm on Friday May 16^th to submit their application.

The catering contractor will be required to provide a comprehensive catering service during the normal operating hours at DkIT when students and staff are in attendance (e.g. early September to late June) and a reduced facility to include lunches is also required from 10am to 4.30pm during holiday periods.

For further details click here or call Peter McGrath on 042-9370210.

 

 

Dundalk IT students raise funds for Muscular Dystrophy Ireland

Some of the students supporting the event yesterday by selling tickets

The final year Business Ethics students at Dundalk Institute of Technology were set the task recently of creating a charity event to raise awareness and funds for a chosen charity. After a class vote, the charity chosen was Muscular Dystrophy Ireland (MDI).

MDI provide information and support to people with neuromuscular conditions and their families through a range of support services and is a voluntary organisation depending solely on donations and state contributions.

From Tuesday to Thursday of this week the class has been running various events to help achieve the goals set out. Tickets are being sold all week for the raffle which takes place this afternoon in the DkIT college bar. There are some great prizes to be won, including 2 Garth Brooks tickets, signed Liverpool and Ireland rugby jerseys, a DVD player, hampers, bottles of wine etc.

Fr Patrick Rushe, the college chaplain, locked up in a temporary jail to raise funds for MDI

The class also organised, a wheelchair basketball tournament on Tuesday, which was great success. Yesterday was the main day of the week, the ‘Jail Break’ and ‘Day in the Life’. DkIT’s chaplain Fr Patrick Rushe (or Fr Paddy as he’s most commonly known) volunteered to be the prisoner in the make shift jail cell, and would remain there until the €500 bail was met by donations both offline (through collecting donations throughout the college) and online (through the MyCharity page set up).

By around 2pm the bail was met and Fr Paddy was released. The event attracted a great vibe around the college and it was brilliant to see how charitable the students were to such as great cause.

Another event which was also run was called ‘A Day In The Life’ where six members of DkIT, including lecturer Colin Cooney, spent the day in a wheelchair. Over €2,700 was raised yesterday alone. The goal is to raise €10,000 by tonight and all of the proceeds will go to MDI.

The class so far have raised close to €9000 as of yesterday so this evening there will be a final push to try and raise the last few donations and to sell the final raffle tickets to reach the goal.

The class along with MDI are very grateful for the support of the students and anyone who was made donations, sponsored the various events, provided raffle prizes etc. There cannot be enough praise given for the kindness and generosity that had being shown. If anyone wishes to make any donations, small or large it would greatly be appreciated and you can do so here.

Action from the wheelchair basketball tournament

Realt na Mara NS open day next week

Realt na Mara NS in Mill Street

Realt na Mara National School in Mill Street will host an open day on Thursday April 10^th from 10.30am to 12 noon.

This will give parents the chance to see all that the school has to offer, as well as meeting staff and students and taking a tour of the school and its classrooms.

Enrolment forms will be available on the day with further details available at www.realtnamarans.ie

Pensioner sentenced to five-year jail sentence over sex invitation to local schoolgirls

Peter Clarke

A local pensioner who is said to be unable to control his behaviour after suffering damage to the frontal lobe of his brain has received a five-year jail sentence for inviting two schoolgirls to take part in a sexual act with him.

Peter Clarke (69) of O’Neill Street, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan and formerly of Tully, Corcreaghy, Louth Village, was found guilty of two counts of sexual exploitation after a trial at Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court last September.

Clarke had denied inviting the then first-year students to participate in a sexual act at a location in Dundalk on September 9th, 2011.

Judge Rory MacCabe yesterday sitting at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin said Clarke was at a high risk of similar offending. He imposed a five-year prison sentence to begin from the date of conviction on September 24th last.

He suspended the final three years for three years on condition Clarke comply with all directions of the Probation Services.

The trial had heard the two 12-year-old girls were sitting outside a café during a break from school when Clarke approached them.

Clarke approached the girls and made a “colloquial” invitation to sexual activity after placing a €5 note on the table. He walked away but came back and repeated the invitation before driving off in a green Jaguar car, the court was told.

Gardaí tracked him down by tracing the distinctive car and Clarke said he couldn’t remember making the propositions but admitted he could have.

The court heard Clarke had 15 previous convictions including three for sexual assault.

He is currently serving two concurrent five-year prison sentences in the Midlands Prison for two sexual assaults committed on May 12th and September 10th, 2011. He also has four convictions for public indecency for offences committed in April 2011, October 2007 and on February 2nd, 2007. His third conviction for sexual assault was committed on February 2nd, 2007.

Roderick O’Hanlon, defending, told the court his client was involved in a significant road traffic incident 20 years ago and suffered damage to his frontal lobe.

He said he had suffered brain atrophy and operated on a “mildly mentally handicapped basis”.

“He has an inability to properly control himself as regards sexual matters, particularly, it would appear, with younger females,” Mr O’Hanlon said.

Dundalk IT to host another computer camp this June

Dundalk Institute of Technology is to hold another edition of its ever popular Computer Camp for pre-third level students this June. The three day camp aims to introduce different aspects of computing and provide a taster of the area for students considering a career in computing.

The computing department will run the three day computer camp for 12 to 16 year old students this June. Priced at €40 per student, the camp spans multiple thriving areas of computing, including web technology, programming, 3D modelling, hardware and robotics.

The camp’s content has been designed to introduce students to a variety of areas in computing, giving them a taste of what is possible with computers. Additionally, the camp will teach them basic web computing skills useful in everyday life. The topics will be taught by current DkIT post-graduate students, each of whom possesses a full degree in their area.

Over the course of the camp, students will attend three day-long sessions, each of which is targeted to a specific field. On the first day, they will assemble a computer from its components, learning the function of each of the parts inside the PC. The second day is devoted to understanding programming, both through robotics and programming in a teaching language, Scratch. By combining robotics with programming, students see exactly how a program is executed and why logical thinking plays such a large role. The third and final day covers multimedia topics including image manipulation and web using HTML5 and CSS3.

The camp will run from 10am-4pm, with lunch and refreshments for all days included in the booking cost (payable on the first day of camp). In addition to this, students will also receive a memory key containing a selection of software relevant to the classes and any notes for the sessions.

Availability is limited to 20 places and demand is high, so applications should be submitted early. If demand is extremely high, a second camp may be run from the 25th to the 27th of June, covering the same topics. Further information and application forms are available here.

If you wish to find out more about this course, please contact Mark Morrissey at itlc@dkit.ie

Meenan looks at safer parking solutions at Gaelscoil

Gaelscoil Dhun Dealgan in Muirhevnamor

Sinn Féin’s Cllr Kevin Meenan has called on Dundalk Town Council to come up with safer parking solutions at Gaelscoil Dhun Dealgan in Muirhevnamor.

The all-Irish school is popular with pupils and parents from all over the area because of its specialised nature. That leads to a large number of cars forming in the estate when students are entering and leaving the school. That, coupled with the natural traffic flow of the estate, leads to huge vehicular traffic in that part of Muirhevnamor at key times of the day.

Parents have become concerned about the number of cars that their children having to walk through to get collected from school and have asked Cllr Meenan to look at ways of dealing with the problem before an accident occurs.

He told LMFM that a number of parents had been on to him about the problem. He said he would now talk to council engineers to look at safer parking solutions near to the school. He has already met with the school’s principal and is welcoming further feedback from the public after claiming there were a number of “near misses” in recent times.

Abbotstown, not Dundalk, now earmarked for country’s first indoor velodrome

The National Sports Campus has plenty of scope for future development of something along the lines of a velodrome

Dundalk’s hopes of having the first international standard indoor velodrome look to have taken another hit as plans now look in place to have it located at the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown.

Last month plans were unveiled by Dundalk IT and Cuchulainn Cycling Club for a state-of-the-art track at the former JJB Sports Complex at Dundalk Retail Park.

However, those proposals have been put on ice due to students voting against it.

While those behind it insist it is not dead in the water, Cycling Ireland and Badminton Ireland have presented the findings of a feasibility study on establishing a velodrome at Abbotstown, with the National Sports Campus Development Authority (NSCDA) presenting them to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

The study concluded that once it becomes operational the business model being proposed for the velodrome would make it self-financing.

So enthused have all parties been with the plans that last week Minister Leo Varadkar gave the NSCDA the go ahead to draw up plans for a velodrome.

It is understood it will be built to international specifications, with a 250-metre track wrapped around a badminton facility containing 16 courts. The cost of the project is estimated at around €8m and it is possible that work could start on it as soon as later this year.

That would put Abbotstown firmly in the driving seat for the country’s first indoor velodrome.

Dundalk IT pull the plug on funding application for velodrome

The JJB facility at Dundalk Retail Park may not house a velodrome due to student objections

Dundalk IT have pulled the plug on their application for funding for the proposed international standard velodrome at the former JJB facility following opposition to the project from students.

Despite reports that the three bodies behind the plans – Cuchulainn Cycling Club, DkIT and Cycling Ireland – were continuing with their funding application following a meeting yesterday, the college this morning notified the Students’ Union that they would not be doing so – despite a deadline of February 28^th to secure funding for the project.

A Dundalk IT Students’ Union source told Talk of the Town this morning that: “We got word from DkIT today that they did not go ahead with the funding application and won’t be doing so.”

That leaves the project very much up in the air.

Earlier this week students voted almost unanimously against the proposal for the velodrome. After lobbying students last week, 40 class reps met to discuss the matter and after listening to Dundalk IT president Denis Cummins, voted by 39 votes in favour of rejecting the proposals. No one supported the project, although one class rep did abstain.

The students are frustrated that plans for the velodrome at the JJB facility at Dundalk Retail Park were announced without consulting them. They have a key interest in the facility after agreeing to pay an additional €125 in their annual fees to help subsidise the college’s purchase of the facility last year.

The students claim that Mr Cummins has given them a commitment that the velodrome will not go ahead without their consent.

While that remains to be seen, it had been understood that the three bodies were hopeful of changing student opinion by outlining that the velodrome would only take up a portion of the facility. They insist that as well as an international standard velodrome, there will also be a 20-metre pool, four indoor soccer pitches, an international sized skating rink, two 5,000 sq metre gyms, plunge pools, saunas, 12 multipurpose fitness suites, eight badminton courts in the middle of the velodrome, 12,000 sq metres of vacant space for a range of new facilities and 550 car parking spaces.

Yesterday, cycling website Sticky Bottle reported that those involved in the plan acknowledge the vote in the college was a step backwards and that the students’ views need to be respected.

Sticky Bottle said attempts will now be made to convince the students that plans for the track would contribute to making the college a stand-out facility for sporting excellence, enhance the college’s reputation and improve its sporting facilities for students.

Previously: Plans for Dundalk velodrome up in the air after students vote against the proposal

Students want career guidance, insists Sharkey

Cllr Tomás Sharkey

Sinn Féin Councillor Tomás Sharkey has raised the need for career guidance services to be properly resourced in Louth schools.

“Leaving Cert students are busy finalising their applications for college entry in September 2014. They are filling in their forms ready for the final deadline of 1st February. Unfortunately, students in Louth and across this state are left to do this without the same supports and advice that previous students had. This government cut the ring fenced provision of guidance counselling in our schools last year,” said Cllr Sharkey.

“Comhairle na nÓg is a youth forum in Louth. That group of teenagers came to the December monthly meeting of Louth County Council and explained clearly what their concerns were. In their presentation to councillors, teenagers were concerned about the ‘consistency of availibility of career guidance counsellors and the delivery of career guidance intervention.’  They gave a clear recommendation to us and said they wanted more funding for career guidance and the provision of career guidance earlier in school life.

“As a teacher, I know how much students and parents value the advice that a career guidance counsellor can give. I also know how confusing it can be for students at this time. Young people have told us their concerns and have offered sensible solutions. It is time the government listened to them.”