Coláiste Eoin
Coláiste Eoin is an Irish language Catholic voluntary secondary Gaelscoil for boys, under the trusteeship of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust located in Booterstown, County Dublin, Ireland. It prides itself in the Irish culture, having successful hurling and football teams, traditional music bands, and Irish language debating teams. Over 96% of students went on to third-level education in 2005.[1] The school is financed by resources from the Department of Education and Science and voluntary donations.
Campus
The school is 6 km from Dublin city centre. The campus incorporates Coláiste Eoin and Coláiste Íosagáin's original 1970s-built buildings, a science block, an arts block, the newly built 3-storey classroom block and sports hall, and a large sports field with a football and hurling pitch. The school grounds originally covered a much larger area than today's 10 hectares, stretching out much further than its current confines. A large amount of this land was sold by the Christian Brothers and has since been developed into housing estates, apartment blocks and a hotel.
New buildings
Early in the 1990s it was deemed that the school's existing single storey buildings, built in the 1970s, were far too small to accommodate the rapid growth and expansion of both Coláiste Eoin and Íosagáin. It was decided that the school would require both a new classroom block and a sports hall and auditorium. The project, however, experienced difficulties from the outset due to a lack of funds. It took many years of collecting voluntary donations from parents and other members of the public for the project to even reach the planning stage. A second barrier was posed by the fact that additional accommodation could only be placed in a constricted rear area of the site, because the existing grass, gaelic pitch to the south of this site was to be retained. This restricted site condition caused the new building to be formed into two shared elements: a four storey academic block, and a Sports Hall with performance space. Despite these difficulties, building finally commenced in 2001, of a Grafton Architects designed structure that met with all the schools requirements. The project was completed in 2003 and has since won a prestigious award at the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland Awards 2004.
Coláiste Íosagáin
Coláiste Íosagáin is an Irish language Catholic voluntary secondary gaelscoil for girls under the trusteeship of the Sisters of Mercy, which shares a campus with Coláiste Eoin. It was established in 1971, two years after Coláiste Eoin's establishment, to provide education through the Irish language for girls in the South County Dublin area .
Extracurricular activities
Sport
Coláiste Eoin maintain a strong Gaelic Athletic Association tradition. The school has a history of success in hurling and Gaelic football competitions over thirty years. Many pupils have also excelled in an adapted form of Aussie Rules.
Music and drama
Coláiste Eoin is the alma mater of Kíla and Liam Ó Maonlaí and Fiachna Ó Braonáin of the Hothouse Flowers. This tradition continues to this day where bands are annually produced to perform in various competitions such as Siansa (formerly known as Slógadh), an All-Ireland competition for traditional musicians. The school succeeded in winning Siansa in 2002 and in 2007 and have been close runners up most other years.
2006 saw the school's first musical production, a modernised dramatisation of the Irish mythological epic Táin Bó Cuailgne written and directed by Colm Ó Foghlú. The musical was staged by the school's Transition Year in conjunction with Coláiste Íosagáin. The production was met with acclaim, selling out all four nights of its run and gaining significant publicity for the school, having been featured on the RTÉ, TG4 and TV3 networks .
The school's Transition Year is expected to continue staging musical productions annually due to the success of the 2006 production which came into being due to two main establishing factors, the first being that the school has access to a newly built auditorium and secondly that a Transition Year system has been put in place in the school since 2004, thus accommodating such extracurricular activities. The 2006-2007 Transition Year staged an original production called Opus IV, with Colm Ó Fóghlú and a team of dedicated producers once again at the helm. In 2008, the joint Transition Year performed an Irish-language version of Romeo and Juliet. The school has since focused on more mainstream titles, having staged performances of Grease, The Sound of Music and Beauty and the Beast.
Debating
Recent years have seen a resurgence of debating activity in the school, in Irish, English and German. The school entered both Junior and Senior teams in Gael Linn's annual Irish Language debating competitions for the first time in nine years in 2004, where they found immediate success, winning the senior competition. The junior team followed in their footsteps in 2005 to win their respective competition. The school's senior team was defeated in the 2006 final. 2007 saw the junior team once again reach the final.
German debating has also come to the fore in the school, having successful teams for the past two years and even reaching the All-Ireland final in 2007. A small number of students have entered English language debating competitions, in which they were reasonably successful.
Music bands
Coláiste Eoin's rounded cultural approach to education has always encouraged music amongst students and teachers alike, the fruits of this witnessed in the large number of bands whose roots trace back to the institution.
Hothouse Flowers
Liam Ó Maonlaí and Fiachna Ó Braonáin began their musical careers in Coláiste Eoin, where the pair first met. They were known, during their time in the school, to busk on the streets of Dublin as "The Incomparable Benzini Brothers". They were hugely successful, winning an award for street entertainment within a year. It was not until a third member, Peter O'Toole, joined the group that it was renamed "Hothouse Flowers". It was at this stage that the group began their careers at a national and international level and have since become one of Ireland's most successful bands.
Kíla
Kíla was formed in Coláiste Eoin in 1987 by Eoin Dillon, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Rossa Ó Snodaigh, Rónán Ó Snodaigh, Karl Odlum and Dave Odlum, all 16 and 17 year olds at the time. Their early days saw them earn most of their money from busking. Over the next number of years the band gradually became more successful as their line up evolved, seeing Colm Ó Snodaigh, Dee Armstrong, Dave Reidy and Eoin O'Brien join and losing Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Dave Odlum to fellow Irish band "The Frames". The band blossomed in the 1990s with a string of successful records and awards which continues to this day.
Moving Hearts
Davy Spillane, founding member of "Moving Hearts", began his career with uilleann pipes at the age of twelve in Coláiste Eoin. For the next three years he played at sessions and met many prominent Irish musicians. At the age of 16 he started to play at concerts in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe. In 1978 he appeared on a compilation album of promising young uilleann players called "The Piper's Rock". It was in about 1980 that he established "Moving Hearts", an Irish folk-rock band, with fellow musicians Christy Moore, Donal Lunny, Declan Sinnott, Keith Donald, Eoghan O'Neill and Brian Calnan. They followed in the footsteps of Horslips in combining Irish traditional music with rock and roll, and also added elements of jazz to their sound.
The Frames
Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Dave Odlum, whose musical careers began in ernest while attending Coláiste Eoin where they were founding members of "Kíla", later left the band to join "The Frames" in 1990. The band had only formed that year riding on the crest of Dublin's prolific early 90s rock and roll scene. The band found success in the mid-nineties with their second album "Fitzcarraldo" and have since become one of Ireland's leading rock bands. Dave Odlum left "The Frames" in 2002 to pursue a career as a music producer, working largely at Black Box Studios near Angers in France. He has produced albums for "The Frames" themselves as well as Gemma Hayes, Josh Ritter, Halite and Mic Christopher.
Na Fíréin
Colm Mac Séalaigh, a former teacher in Coláiste Eoin since its foundation, formed "Na Fíréin" in May 1984 with fellow members Eoin Smith, Gearóid Ó Murchú and Franny McBride. It was an attempt to create the first true rock band that sang in the Irish medium. Colm himself wrote a large number of the band's songs including their most famous song "Tír na nÓg".
Famous past pupils/teachers
- Odhrán and Seathrún Ó Casaide, members of Na Casaidigh
- Liam Ó Maonlaí, Fiachna Ó Braonáin - Members of The Hothouse Flowers
- Colm Ó Maonlaí - Actor in various films and TV shows including British soap EastEnders
- Colm Mac Con Iomaire - Member of The Frames
- Colm Ó Ciosoig - Member of My Bloody Valentine
- Davy Spillane - Uilleann pipe player and founding member of Moving Hearts
- Aengus Ó Snodaigh - Sinn Féin TD
- Tony Gregory - Independent TD
- Dara Ó Briain - Stand-up Comedian and Television Presenter
- Fiach Mac Conghail - Director of the Abbey Theatre and Senator