First day at all-boys’ school

SHE might be the only girl at the previously all-boys’ Nagle Community College, but Meagan Kavanagh was with her friends when she started her second-level education yesterday.

The 11-year-old was the subject of huge public discussion earlier this month when the Department of Education ruled that the school should admit her into first year, as its enrolment policy had not explicitly stated it was an all-boys’ school.

The decision followed an appeal by her mother against the refusal by the school in the Cork suburb of Mahon and City of Cork Vocational Education Committee (VEC) to enrol her last spring.