Gaelscoil na Móna – Looking to the Future | Did you enjoy the good weather? | A Slap in the Face to Palestinians

A few weeks after the Good Friday Agreement was agreed in April 1998 I brought a delegation of the Board of Governors of Bunscoil Phobail Feirste, on the Shaws Road in west Belfast, to meet the British Secretary of State Mo Mowlam. I asked for the meeting after the Department of Education had again denied funding to the school for the construction of permanent school buildings. The Department had just announced a £33 million schools building programme which excluded Irish medium schools and nurseries. I did an intense series of engagements with Mo Mowlam in the run into this meeting and she told me privately in advance that she was going to supply the funding. But she said she had not told the Department of Education officials. 

Nowadays almost thirty years later, this attitude to equality and the right to acceptable school facilities remains an ongoing challenge. Despite this Irish medium education has grown in popularity and numbers. When Bunscoil Phobail Feirste, which was the first Irish medium school in the North, opened its doors in 1970 it had 8 pupils. Today there are around 8,000 pupils in  Irish medium education. A fitting tribute to those dedicated activists and parents who stood up for their rights and refused to be ignored or discriminated against.

One fine example of this determination was evident last week when Gaelscoil na Móna held a celebration of its 25th anniversary. When it first opened in September 2000, on a tiny site in temporary huts behind houses on the Monagh Road in Turf Lodge, there were a handful of students. Today there are around 80 and there are an additional 25 in the Naíscoil.

Did you enjoy the good weather??

Did you enjoy the weekend? The blue skies and warm weather? The mountain walk along the top of Black Mountain was busy with those of all ages enjoying the Sun and the heat. Our parks and public spaces were full of people making best use of the hot weather. It’s hard to imagine at such times that shifting weather patterns and climate instability, as a result of humanities pollution, is threatening the stability of our world. But it is.

Three weeks ago the ‘European State of the Climate report’ was published bringing together the work of 100 scientific contributions and providing an overview of the threat to our climate.

The report revealed that globally 2025 was the third warmest year on record and that each of the past 11 years has been among the 11 warmest on record. Europe is now the fastest warming continent on Earth. The result is that glaciers in all European regions saw a net mass loss; the annual sea surface temperature for Europe was the highest on record; and wildfires burned the largest area on record.

A Slap in the Face to Palestinians

Israel’s brutal treatment of hundreds of international activists, kidnapped by its forces after it attacked the Global Sumud Flotilla, has been widely condemned. The flotilla of ships was trying to bring much needed aid to the Gaza Strip. Images of men and women activists forced to kneel, with their hands bound behind them and their foreheads on the ground sparked outrage. This grew in intensity as reports emerged of systematic beatings and ill-treatment and the release of a video by Israel's far-right national security minister Ben-Gvir. He told the Israeli Parliament that he was proud of his actions “against those supporters of terror” and that the images released “are a great source of pride.