Jennifer Keegan
A NORTHSIDE school that was badly damaged in a fire has received overwhelming support from the local community.
On October 16, 2019, a fire broke out on the first floor of the senior school building at Scoil Chaitríona Cailíní on Measc Avenue in Coolock.
The fire burnt down the entire upstairs of the building, including a brand new library. The roof had collapsed and much of the ground floor had also been damaged. Thankfully, the other half of the building which houses the junior school, Scoil Chaitríona Naíonáin, was left undamaged.
Though the fire happened in October, its impact is still being felt by everyone involved in the school. Parents, pupils, staff and the surrounding community are doing what they can to get back on their feet after the terrible event. The fire had rendered the entire senior school unusable and the whole building now needs to be rebuilt.
Principal of Scoil Chaitríona Cailíní, Imelda Whelan, described the devastation as “a total loss”. “We didn’t take anything out,” Ms Whelan told Northside People. “It was very hard on staff who had been here many years and had resources that had been built up and can’t be reproduced.”
Many of the pupils’ mothers and grandmothers had themselves attended the school. Parents’ Association Chairperson, Helena Healy, described her first reaction to the fire as a “feeling of despair, not just because it was my school but we [other parents] were like: what’s next?” Another member, Nicola Reid, said: “It was a horrible feeling, like a death had happened.”
Offers to help the pupils and staff came flooding in from all directions in the weeks following the fire.
One of the most notable losses was the new library that only been opened earlier that year. Around a thousand books were lost in the blaze.
The Parents’ Association, along with staff, decided to rebuild the library entirely by themselves. Through promotion on social media, they received donations of books and shelving from the local community such as schools, libraries and clubs as well as other parents. They now have a huge collection of books that can be borrowed from the makeshift library that has been set up by the parents in the other half of the school.
“You couldn’t see the floor,” said Ms Healy. “There were so many boxes of books.” Chairs, pens, papers, tables were also donated by schools in the area.
In order to continue class time as normally as possible, pupils from the senior school were moved to spare rooms and spaces in St Brendan’s Boys’ National School and Mercy College Secondary School while emergency temporary classrooms were built beside the damaged school.
“No matter what happened, we would have to stay in the Measc Avenue area,” said Ms Whelan, speaking about finding a new premises.
“We’re all about the community and we weren’t ever going to leave here.”
Both Mercy College and St Brendan’s share the same land as Scoil Chaitríona, which made it an easy transition for the pupils of Scoil Chaitríona.
Ms Healy added: ‘The kindness that was shown, not even just by the principals and teachers but the boys and students too…the girls were sad leaving.”
Since Christmas, the pupils have moved into those temporary classrooms which were built on the school’s sports field and they are now awaiting the beginning of the reconstruction of the senior school. It is expected that the new school should be up and running by the end of 2020.