Principal: Funding for new school means bright future for students

Students of Coláiste Pobail Naomh Mhuire in Buttevant, Co Cork, have been told work should begin on their new school building early next year.

After a campaign to retain second-level education that began before most of the current classes were born, the state-of-the-art facility is among 70 major building projects chosen to go ahead in the Department of Education 2014 schools capital programme.

After the Mercy order of nuns decided in the late 1990s to pull out of education in the north Cork town where they first began teaching over a century earlier, Co Cork VEC (now Cork Education and Training Board) took over the school as a community college. Local councillor Tom Sheahan, who has chaired the local education committee, said the turnaround shows the community’s dedication to keeping a second-level school in the town.