Throughout the year,we take part in many different fundraising activities in the school and out with the community to help raise funds and awareness for different charities.
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Primary School Peer Literacy Programme 2025
Primary School Peer Literacy Programme 2025
Students with their certificates in Chapters Bookstore
Seán Gavigan & Alex Byrne addressing the audience in Chapters
During the 2025 school a handful of our transition year students were involved in an exciting peer reading programme. The programme is a joint initiative between Drimnagh Castle secondary and primary schools and aims to improve literacy amongst our students using peer mentoring and role modelling. This new project was the brainchild of MS Mhuire from the primary school and she is ably assisted by Mr Kelleher from our secondary school. The programme entails a student mentor from Drimnagh Castle secondary school working with about 3 students from Drimnagh Castle primary school. We visited the primary school once a week. We spent over an hour with the students. The young students read children’s novels in the company of their mentor who helps and guides them with their reading, sounding out words, using full stops and commas correctly and overall encouraging them to become better readers.
This programme lasted for about 6 weeks during which the mentors would go in once a week for about an hour to test the students' reading. At the end of the 6 weeks we had a graduation ceremony in the chapter book store where two of our students Alex Byrne and Sean Gavigan spoke in front of the crowd. They explained how this course was so beneficial to both mentors and the peers. The primary school students’ reading improved immeasurably as did their confidence in reading. From a mentor perspective we learned the value of working with younger people and also developed the practical skills of organising and teaching young learners.
Overall this a great programme and I hope future years of TY’s get to do it as well
Community Litter Pick-Up
Community Litter Pick-Up
ECO UNESCO Clean Up Team at work
By Bien Rosales
As part of our QQI Level 3 Project, we organised a collaborative litter pick-up in Dublin city centre. We initially planned on putting more bins around the city centre and our school, as well as spreading awareness about it, but it was a lot more difficult than we thought, so we decided to switch onto a collaborative litter pick up with another group. Loads of weeks of planning were put into this, and with the help of ECO-UNESCO, we got into contact with the Dublin City Council for supplies. With their kind cooperation and consideration, we were given loads of supplies to assist us in our litter pick-up,such as plastic bags, litter picker claws, gloves as well as Hi-Vis jacket, we had loads of people partaking in the litter pick up as there were 2 groups, so the plan was to split up into a couple teams to occupy as much space as we could around the Spire in Dublin City Centre.
My team consisted of 4 people, myself, Tomás Quilmore, Ciaran Kildee Doolan and Jayden Donaghy. We only had roughly an hour and a half to do as much cleaning as we could. The weather wasn’t sunny but it wasn’t raining heavily so we had pretty good conditions when doing the litter pick-up. We met a person who noticed what we were doing and was proud of the work we were doing around the city centre. Surprisingly, after we had completed our pick-up, someone spotted a few elderly people holding a huge banner, as they were protesting against racism, so before we left we took a few pictures with them. After that, we were finally done with our QQI Level 3 Project.
Since we worked with another group, our main objective was to make a meaningful impact, no matter how insignificant, through our cooperative efforts to clean up public spaces as well as raise awareness due to the problems of waste management and environmental responsibility within the city centre. The purpose of this event was showing that it’s so much stronger to work as a team, emphasizing that even the smallest contributions from each person can collectively work towards a more sustainable future. Furthermore, we used this event in connection with our ongoing YEA (Young Environmentalist Awards) Project, our focus on Climate Awareness to the youth (such as the 1st Years) around our school and with the goal of cleaning and restoring the environment to the best of our ability.
Overall, I really enjoyed it as it was a day out of school, we managed to do something fun, we were able to have a good time and chat with each other and we also contributed something positive towards the environment. A month after the litter pick-up, we had one last meeting with QQI Level 3 in the ECO-UNESCO building, where we were given our certificates for completing the course as well as a donut as a reward!
Global Justice
Global Justice
By Craig Rooney
Global Justice is the theory that states that the individual is more important than the state, community or culture. It also states that everyone should be treated equally regardless of their sexuality, religion or race. Global Injustice happens in a lot of countries around the world. These countries suffer a lot of injustices such as the gender pay gap, where men are paid more than women and education is not being provided to children.
In order to retain Global Justice ,the UN has set up Human Rights. These are seventeen rules declaring how humans should be treated and helped. There are also charities which enforce Human Rights even further. At a recent Trocáire workshop, we learned about global injustice.This also brought us onto climate injustice, things which we think are sustainable really aren’t. Such as electric cars, which require lithium, which is mined from specific areas and will eventually low on supply.
Sustainable Development Goals
Then we learned about the Sustainable Development Goals. These are Seventeen Goals which are placed to help the environment, the lives of people and the lives of animals.
Here are a couple of examples; No Poverty, Quality Education and Gender Equality.
We were also shown a video of how SDGs had impacted a small village in Kenya. Originally the village had very basic necessities but Trocaire came along and helped them advance their village by following the SDGs. Now their village has electricity and fresh running water instead of gathering it from a well. The SDGs have also helped a lot more areas in third-world countries providing them with fresh water and electricity making their lives better. These SDGs have also tried to remove Global Injustice by giving these places education and getting rid of any gender inequality.
How Can We Spread Awareness About Global Justice?
We can spread awareness about Global Justice by supporting charities such as; Trocaire or Global Justice Now. These charities support Global Justice and help people who are oppressed or discriminated against by Global Injustice.
Conclusion
In conclusion I believe that Global Injustice is a thing that shouldn’t happen around the world.
Nobody should discriminate or oppress someone because of their belief, sexuality, gender or race. I thank charities around the world for their help to combat Global Injustice by enforcing Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals. Thank You For Reading My Article About Global Injustice
Gabriel Zurbano 3.1
Our class, 3.1, had a workshop with Stephen Farley who works with Trócaire and he talked to us about the concept of Global Justice and Injustice. The workshop started as an introduction to Trocaire and what they do as an organisation. The topic then shifted to Global Injustice and what they do to fix it.
Global injustice is when not everyone has equal access to the resources that they need and the power to make decisions that affect their lives. Global Injustice is experienced through the denial of Human Rights, The absence of opportunity and not having a voice or power over one's destiny. This is often caused by systems outside one's control.
The Trocaire worker, Stephen Farley, showed us the injustices that occur. He told us about examples of people who resist injustices and how to raise awareness. This brought us onto the topic of Palestine and examples of the denial of human rights there. Stephen gave us historical and religious background to Palestine and its situation. He told us how global injustice affects Palestine.
The conflicts of Palestine originate from its location. Its location is key due to it being the birthplace of some of the world’s major religions, Christianity and Judaism. Palestine has also been ruled by many kingdoms due to its religious importance and landmarks, Egypt,The Persian Empire, Roman Empire, The British Empire and several Muslim Caliphates.
Palestine originally was part of the British Empire, Known as British Mandatory Palestine. Following the first world war and the occupation of the region, the region of Palestine was under British rule. In 1936, there was an Arab revolt, one of the main reasons for Palestinian nationalism. The revolt was a disaster for the Palestinians and it failed. This period of time consisted of many violent clashes between Zionists and Arabs. A massive influx of Jews came into the region after the second World War.
The United Nations announced their plan of separating the region of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, splitting it, half / half. Conflict sparked, and on the 14th of May, Israel declared independence, war then broke out, around 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee from the territory that Israel asserted their unfair claim on. This is known as Al-Nakba, translating into the “Catastrophe”
In 1967, the six day war occurred, between Israel and its neighbors, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The war ended in a victory for Israel, resulting in the full occupation of Palestine, including areas like “The West Bank”, “East Jerusalem” and the “Gaza Strip” All of Palestinian land was no longer theirs.
Palestine now has become small and scattered patches of land all over the west bank as Israel continues to develop and settle on more Palestinian territory. Many Palestinians are cut off from each other and their rights continue to be denied.For example the right to play is being denied of Palestinian children, with a playground in the south Hebron hills being considered illegal. Rights to an education have been denied, with many young people facing difficulties to even go to school such as unnecessarily long journeys, military checkpoints and intimidation from the Israeli Military. The freedom of movement, denied with many not being allowed to move around freely in their own country.
What remains of Palestine are small patches across the region. Many overlook the Palestine situation despite the fact that real people are experiencing similar conditions that the Berliners during the cold war were, yet no real media coverage, no real big talks, nothing.
We should as students spread the awareness of Palestine and its people.
TY Social Outreach
TY Social Outreach
By Conor Doyle, Jack Smith & Yoan Nikolov
As Drimnagh Castle transition year students we are involved in a number of social outreach projects aimed at increasing awareness within our school community about the main social issues facing us today.
The Simon Community
The simon community group works to educate the junior year students on homelessness and how we as individuals can help alleviate the crisis in homelessness. So far the team working on this project have presented to several first, second and third year students about the Simon Community, spreading awareness about the issues of homelessness, what the Simon Community is, how to contact them and what you can do to help. We also printed posters and put them up across the school to once again spread awareness. We are planning to contact prominent characters in the community to come in and speak to the students.
Pieta House
As part of Transition Year, students have to do a project called Social Outreach. This project is where students work with different charities such as The Simon Community, Pieta House, Irish Society for Autism, Weee Ireland and Friends of The Elderly. We make people aware of the charity/organisations by making posters and hanging them up around the school. We also deliver presentations to first and second year students.
Right now, our job is to raise awareness about our organisation created for us by Mr.Kelleher. We do this by hanging posters about the organisation up around the school and delivering presentations into the junior classes around the school.
When all that is done,we contact the organisation and we will have to help out,plan events and host fundraisers to help the organisation. We do this from January until the end of the school year. You can learn more about all these great organisation by clicking in the links below.
Pieta | Preventing Suicide and Self-Harm since 2006
Ending Homelesness in Ireland - Simon Communities in Ireland
Homepage - Friends of the Elderly Ireland
Home Page - Irish Society for Autism
BWG Business In The Community Initiative
BWG Business In The Community Initiative
By Jan Wayne Silang
Introduction
Hello my name is Jan Wayne. I am part of class 2021, I am enrolled in Drimnagh Castle Secondary School, my business class was involved in a multi-week program, involved with BWG Foods, The programme my class was involved in was called “Business in the community”. My class was introduced to BWG Employee Andrea Lazenby Simpson. Andrea came in every once or twice a week to teach our class many valuable lessons that we could all use outside of school to run our own personal business and how it is like.
Meet & Greet session
Our first lesson would be the Meet & Greet session with Andrea and multiple of her co-workers which worked in different industries. This class would be us getting comfortable with each other and introducing one another. What we did is that we were told to follow instructions and somewhat draw a figure, after we finished drawing the figure we were to present it to them. Of course, everyone’s drawing looked way different to one another. Personally this lesson for me wasn’t very enjoyable compared to the many other lessons that we had with Andrea and BWG Foods.
“Day in the life” session
This would be the second session of the multi-week programme. As of again we would skype call with the overhead projector and meet multiple employees of BWG Foods! This session was very informative and surprisingly interesting. We talked to many employees in different industries, some in charge of IT and others in charge of promotion. During this session we met a very interesting guy and his nine-thousand unopened emails. Our whole class joked about him having nine-thousand emails. This class was personally my favourite because we started to get more comfortable with them and joked around with them.
Soft skills session.
This would be our third lesson with BWG Foods, this class was an interesting one. Our business class associates were placed into teams by Andrea and we were challenged to make a structure by using Marshmallows and spaghetti. This challenge was also known as the “Marshmallow Challenge” invented by Peter Skillman. We built our structures, each structure looked funny and also very strategically built, we did have a winner at the end, this was four of my classmates. Jeffery Chen,Sava Gaskov, Ian Mercado, Jelin Gejo, Adam Maddy and Patrick Carey became victorious at the very end.
In-personal Site visit
This would be the fourth lesson which was the lesson before our wrap-session. The lesson was that Andrea came to our class in person to visit us face-to-face, at first my class and myself were nervous to meet Andrea in person but as she arrived into the classroom our nervousness disappeared. In this class we learned about “Sustainability” within the environment. Andrea brought in four large pieces of paper and multiple markers, we were challenged to
write about certain things involved with Sustainability during this class Andrea opened our eyes into the real world and how everything
worked.
Wrap-Session
This session was our very last class involved with BWG Foods, my class and myself were in charge of making a whole presentation of what we learned about during our classes with BWG Foods and what we learned, we then would present it in front of Andrea and many of her associates, We were able to get it done and we all took turns talking about certain topics within the presentation, after we finished our principal Mr Devilly walked into our class and congratulated us with finishing our programme with BWG Foods, we were awarded with a certificate stating that we completed the programme. Our class were thankful for the lessons that BWG Foods taught us and we would like to have this experience again and again for other years below us.
Thank you BWG Foods for giving us the opportunity to learn and build a bond with you.
Written By Jan Wayne Silang, Class 21.
100 km Run For Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin
100 km Run For Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin
In February 2021, in the middle of the "long lockdown", one 3rd year student, Ben Rossiter, decided to do something different. Instead of looking in and thinking of himself and the impact the lockdown was having on his learning, sports, and social life, Ben decided to look outwards and do something for others in his local area. He ran 100km for our lady’s children’s hospital. Since the pandemic first started in March 2020, Ben has been moved by the more vulnerable in our society and how Covid 19 has affected them. So with that in mind, he thought what can I do to help?. Before Christmas, like many others, he donated selection boxes to Our Lady’s hospital but felt he could do more. So he ran 100km in the month of February to not only keep mentally and physically fit but to raise awareness and much-needed funds for those more vulnerable than himself. In total, he raised €2,000 for Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin.
Junior Achievement Presentation
Junior Achievement Presentation
Volunteers from Junior Achievement Ireland visited our school last year and set our Transition Year class a task of creating a project within our school for a chosen charity. We decided to carry out a football tournament and give the money made to St. John’s Ward in Crumlin Children’s Hospital.
The tournament was a success and four students, Cian McCarthy, Seán Finn, Dylan Byrne and Liam Kavanagh, were asked to present our project in The Marker Hotel, which was a great experience.
Cian McCarthy
Father PMV Fundraising
Father PMV Fundraising
The past couple of weeks our CSPE class have been working hard to raise money for the Peter McVerry Trust and organising the sleep in for our Junior Cert action project .The Peter McVerry Trust is a charity set up by Fr Peter McVerry to reduce homelessness and the harm caused by drug misuse and social disadvantage .We have a had a non-uniform day which was organised by the fundraising committee and we have managed to raise 527 euro from one non-uniform day . The publicity committee have also been putting up posters around the school trying to raise awareness about the Peter McVerry Trust and our sleep in.
On the 31st of november we had a football tournament for the 1st years and they had a great time .We also have our sponsor cards that were given out a couple of weeks ago and we are collecting them this week .The entertainment and refreshments committee worked very hard to organise the room for our sleep in on the 7th of December.The sleep in was a huge success. In total we have raised over €1000 for the Peter McVerry Trust. That is what we have done so far in our CSPE action project . Below is a link to the Peter McVerry Trust donation page where if you want you can donate to a good cause .
https://www.pmvtrust.ie/donate/
Oisin Rooney
Fundraising Day for Down Syndrome Ireland
Fundraising Day for Down Syndrome Ireland
by Ron Luza
On Friday 5th October, a group of 6 TY students went down to the Ashe Leaf Shopping Center to begin fundraising. Arriving at the shopping center we were met by a lady who was a representative for Down Syndrome Ireland. She gave us bibs showing that we were fundraising for the charity. She also gave us boxes full of pens, stickers, tattoos and buckets for donations. From there we spread across the shopping center collecting money for our allocated shift. Each group was in a shift for 2 hours, with 5 or 6 students collecting at any one time. In total, this resulted in 8 shifts over 2 days.
Over the span of the two days, were told that we had raised €2,731.15. We were delighted to hear that this was the most money raised over the weekend for the the charity across all of their fundraising stations.
"I am so delighted to let you know that Drimnagh Castle TY Students raised the most amount of money on both days 5th and 6th October (€2,731.15), they were amazing. I worked with a number of the teams and we had great fun, they were just so interested in raising as much money as possible, " Down Syndrome Ireland.
One group being inspired by the fundraising, decided to do a social outreach project about Down Syndrome, to raise awareness and let more people understand what Down Syndrome is and it's affect.
MS Readathon
MS Readathon
Back in October Ms Bradshaw told us about the Readathon that was taking place that month. The readathon is a fundraising event where you get sponsorship for reading as many books as you can while raising money for MS Ireland. MS stands for multiple sclerosis.
We learned that when someone has MS; the brain, spinal cord and the nerves become damaged meaning messages sent from the brain aren’t always delivered properly. This means that people with MS can have problems walking,seeing things, remembering things properly or feeling tired all the time.
When we heard this we were happy to raise money to help MS sufferers.
There was also a book review competition which I entered. I read a book called timmy failure book.6 and I won a book called the misfits club, a fidget spinner and an art set. My winning review was also put on the MS readathon facebook page.
As a class (1.1) we managed to raise 130 euro through sponsorship and from our own donations.
We were happy to raise money for this cause and are proud of what we achieved. We got off english homework for a week for our efforts which we were happy about!
By Abdelnour Zouai and Cillian Mernagh (1.1)
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