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Irish legends inspire school’s centennial
By Brendan Farrel
 PUPILS
at a Midlands school have brought a distinct Irish flavour to its centenary
celebrations.
St. Paul’s School for Girls in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham
has almost 1,000 pupils — many of Irish descent.
This year the school is celebrating 100 years of dedicated teaching —
and one of the many projects on the go relates to one of Ireland’s
best-known and loved legends — the Children of Lir.
The idea came from Siobhán Gorman from Sandwell Irish Society together
with the Sandwell Rose Of Tralee and textile designer Claire Diamond.
Earlier this year Siobhán and Claire visited St. Paul’s armed
with maps and posters of Ireland plus several illustrated books on the
subject of Irish legends.
And when Claire told the tale of the Children of Lir in her lovely Derry
accent everybody wanted to get involved.
The project covered several areas of the curriculum including English,
maths, geography, history, technology and religious education —
all geared towards developing the listening, speaking, creative and other
skills of the pupils.
Over several weeks Siobhán, Claire and St. Paul’s textiles
supply teacher Nicola Hawkes talked about the characters from the Lir
legend before the pupils made replicas of the characters from felt.
Between them they discussed the various characters from the legend —
including their shape, size, colours, clothing and facial expressions.
Claire also introduced one of her many skills — the needle felting
technique.
Work is still progressing and when all the figures have been finished
they will go on display in one of the shops in Queen’s Square shopping
centre in West Bromwich on Saturday, March 15 in time for the St. Patrick’s
festivities.
It’s a fitting example of the talents of the pupils at St. Paul’s
— and a vivid illustration of their pride in their Irish roots.
See next week’s Irish Post for more pictures from the Children
of Lir project. |
