We found Cloughfin!!

It took us a while but we did eventually find Cloughfin National School with principal Fiona Farry @ffarry1 on twitter. We actually arrived just as school was letting out on Monday afternoon. What a very polite group of students! It was interesting to see a school where the principal and teachers knew all the parents – 33 students with two pairs of twins.

So Tuesday morning after a great breakfast at the B&B we headed up a road, hoping to find the school. Miss W has this google mapping down to a fine art now. We arrived just in time for school to start.

Of course I was a hit with the students as was a platypus we took with us. I think it stayed behind – not sure what the students will name it. We talked about Tasmania and Ireland, schooling, money, weather and of course animals. We also left a 2015 calendar with lots of animals on it so the students and staff will remember our visit.

Students at Cloughfin

We took quite a few photos and Miss W has created a collage from them. When we went into the junior room, they took me to the veterinarian centre to check me out. Thanks goodness I was well, don’t know what they would have done otherwise.

Talking to all the teachers we have visited here in Ireland, we have noticed many resources teachers use are the same as Miss W used in her classes. Most teachers here are still reluctant to use technology in the classrooms just like back in Tasmania. But at Cloughfin National School where there is a lot of use of computers, twitter, edmodo and Khan Academy, the students looked more interested in what they were learning.

Fiona tweeted out once we left that students were learning the song Highway Number One and then adapting it for places in Ireland. I hope they add their results to their blog.

This was our last school on our Ireland trip.  Many thanks to Martina, Merry and Fiona for allowing me and Miss W to visit. We hope you enjoyed the gifts we left and learnt something about our state Tasmania.

You will notice I am about to add a page called About Ireland to the blog. Any students who read this blog and have questions about Ireland, please leave them on that page. Maybe the students we have visited can then leave answers in the comment area.

Time to catch up

Been a few days since my last post. Miss W has been doing a lot of research on her family history at the National Archives and National Library of Ireland, both in Dublin. She will have lots of information to add to the history of the Jackson family. Luckily there was a great archivist at the archives who told Miss W to check the Outrage papers of Donegal in 1847. She also checked newspapers on microfilm. But she was disappointed that she couldn’t find the actual court records of the trial in 1847.

Before leaving Dublin, we headed out on the Hop on, Hop off bus. These are great for seeing the main tourist sites at a reasonable price. It also meant we didn’t have to drive on the narrow, one way streets of Dublin.

Leaving Dublin on Monday, we headed to Donegal to meet Fiona at her school in the hills behind Lifford. En route, we visited Bru na Boinne which is a fantastic Neolithic site with passages through huge mounds of earth. We didn’t realise you could only visit on a guided tour, so we were lucky to get on one to Knowth immediately we arrived.

Heading back on the main road through Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom), we started hitting slow traffic. Why? Probably tourists who were used to driving in kilometres per hour in Ireland now drove in miles per hour in Northern Ireland. Remember 50mph = 80kph

Finally found our way to Cloughfin National School near Ballindrait near Lifford. Fiona starting to worry as Miss W said we would be there around 2pm but we were closer to 3pm and Fiona had the keys to the B&B where we were to stay in Castlefinn.

More about our visit to the school in our next post.

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