15.06.2012
New Powerscourt National School is Dedicated and Officially Opened
Powerscourt National School’s new building was dedicated and officially opened on Thursday June 14. In a ceremony which drew strongly on the past, the school’s deep roots in the community were emphasised as one of the most modern school buildings in the country was dedicated by Archbishop Michael Jackson. The pupils at Powerscourt NS have gone from being educated in the oldest building in Ireland in continuous use as a school to occupying one of only two passive haus designed primary schools in the State.
Introducing the service of dedication in St Patrick’s Church, Archdeacon Ricky Rountree thanked all who had helped in the 15 year effort to get the new school. The service was led largely by the children of the school. The Junior Gospel Choir contributed to the music and the pupils of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class also produced the Powerscourt National School Acrostic Poem which highlighted the best things about their new school and the community.
In his sermon, Archbishop Jackson, said he was delighted to be invited to share the happy and momentous celebration of the opening of the new school. “Enniskerry National School maintains an honoured place in the life of the parish,” he stated. “Successive families, teachers and rectors have seen to this. To this day there are members of families who can boast of association over three and four generations in the life of the school. Pupils have become teachers,” he said.
The Archbishop said that the life of National Schools in Ireland was under “what seems to me to be the threat of a cloud which might burst at any moment”. He predicted that change would come and had already begun to happen. “Closures inevitably lie ahead of us; the future will not carry within it all that we had begun to take for granted in the past – and we cannot expect it to. In Enniskerry we are fortunate in the extreme to have a new build and we need to appreciate this and to give thanks for the generosity to our community here in Enniskerry on the part of the Department for Education and Skills and its Minister. We need to be mindful of those who in other parts of Ireland, particularly in more rural areas, struggle to enable children who are just like these children gathered here, full of excitement this morning, to have the same sort of education with much smaller number of pupils – because that is what their community is like, that is the size it is,” he stated.
From the church the congregation moved to the school gate where the outdoor art project ‘Flow’ by James Hayes was unveiled. The ribbon was cut on the new building by the youngest pupil in the school, Laila McKee. Inside the school, a cross was dedicated in memory of much–loved former school principal, the late Tess Tinkler. An art project, entitled the Memory Tree, was unveiled in the school hall. A beautifully decorated cake was cut by past pupil, Harry Williams.