Minister turns sod on ‘dream’ school

It was a champagne day for the people of a north Cork town in more ways than one.

The cork was popped on a bottle purchased 17 years ago by Mary Joe Fitzgerald when she helped kickstart a major campaign to secure a new secondary school for Buttevant.

Sadly, she died last January and did not get to witness the official sod-turning yesterday for the planned new €6.5m Coláiste Mhuire. But her daughter, Lisa kept her mother’s promise and popped open the bottle to celebrate the beginning of the project.