Visitors to Our Class

RUAIRI QUINN

Friday, 21st September

The leader of the Labour Party, Ruairi Quinn, came to our school to talk to Transition Year students, LCA students and some Leaving certificate students about the Labour Party's prospects for the future and about other issues. Two colleagues, Robert Dowds, a local councillor, and Joanna Tuffy, a candidate in the next election, accompanied him, however they did not speak very much as Mr. Quinn took centre stage. He had a camera crew from R.T.E.'s Prime Time programme with him. He asked us what we would do if we were Taoiseach for a day. Answers ranged from sport to military matters. Other topics discussed included drugs, the role of Sinn Fein and the I.R.A., and the roles and responsibilities of the travelling community. He also spoke of the lack of money designated to Dublin's homeless in this year's budget.

DAITHI O'HAODHA

Monday, 1 October

Daithi O'hAodha came to Moyle Park College to talk to our Transition year class about 'Self-Help'. This is an organisation that works in Ethiopia to help those affected by famine. He showed us some slides about the area where he worked. He revealed some astonishing and disturbing facts: a six foot man weighing three and a half stone, a daily mortality rate of fifty people per campsite and common ailments such as diarrhoea and dehydration causing death. He also told us about the help he provided and told us some success stories. He and his agencies do some fabulous work. You can read about our school involvement in the project on the page prepared by Daniel Martyn.

COLM KELLY

Wednesday 9th January 2002

On Wednesday 9th of January, a guitarist, Colm Kelly, came to our Music Appreciation class to speak to us about the different types of guitars. He is a musician and attends Maynooth University. He started playing the guitar when he was in first year in secondary school. He spoke about the different types of guitars and then played a few chords and showed how a few chords can make all the difference. After he played a few more complex chords and songs. He also spoke about how he learned the different scales and how, when he learned them, it opened doors for him, musically, because he was now able to do more complex songs. Because of learning the scales he got into jazz which is one of the doors the scales opened. He was taught by Breffni Murphy who he described as kind of wacky and weird. One of Colm's idols is Django Rheinhart, who was a French gypsy whose caravan burned down and burned his hand in the process. This left him with only two usable fingers. However he was still an excellent guitarist. Colm then took out a classic guitar and played it for us. While he was in Maynooth, he got in touch with Dennis Costello who had received a B.A. in Maynooth and went onto London and studied music there. Dennis Costello is a remarkable guitarist because he is able to sight-read six lines of music at the one time. If you are learning the guitar, Colm explained, there are 8 grades that you have to do and 8 theory grades. He also got Alan Burke to turn the pages on his sheet music while he finished the class by playing us some classical guitar music.

GER CAREY

Thursday, January 27th 2002

In our second term in T.Y., Ger Carey, a film director, came into our class to talk to us about films, and all the different aspects of films that you would never think about or that they were so important. He was in our class for the whole day, entertaining and teaching us about films. He told us how he got involved in film directing, theatre and acting. He told us why he got into films. He was not sure what he wanted to do after he left school as he was just working in a petrol station, when one day it hit him that he was wasting his life so he quit and started to do some serious thinking and realised that he had a passion for films so he decided that that's what he wanted to get involved in. There is not much work in Ireland so he emigrated to Derby, England. He told how it was not easy to get into the business as everybody thinks. He told us how he had to start of working for free just to get some experience. He got a job in Tesco in the mornings and in the afternoon he was working on a play for free. He went to all the agencies in the area and gave them his name to get himself known. He got his first speaking part as a guard in a play and from then on he started to get bigger parts until he got lead roles in small productions. He went to drama school to get to know a bit more about the camera angles and to be able to have it on his record. After he came out of drama school he started to get known by film directors and began to get more parts. He decided to try and make his own movie so he wrote to the Irish Film Board and asked them for a grant to make his movie so they told him to come up with a rough budget for them to review, so he spent three months coming up with a budget by finding out who would be interested in taking part and getting estimates for lights and cameras. When he finally had the budget drawn up, he sent it into the Irish Film Board. It was not long until he got a reply, apologising for not being able to give him the money, but wished him luck with the film. He phoned his friends whom he was with in drama school and they had all got the same reply but all wanted to make a film. With all of them having the same ideas they decided to each put in £2000 and make a short film. It was quite successful and the Irish Film Board showed it at the Irish Film Awards. H e has made a few other films and is currently working on a comedy film, and going by his performance for our class it will be a huge success. We then made a short film and this showed us how important that the different camera angles are so important and how a different angle can emphasis something and that most films are dubbed for many reasons The Transition Year class and I wish him all the luck in the future!

Declan Coyle

Tuesday, February 5th 2002

Declan Coyle came into our class to speak to us about motivation. He started off by speaking about setting goals. He said that you have to make a plan as to how you are going to achieve your goals. You also have to write them down so you do not forget them and so that they can come true. He also said that everybody is responsible for their own moods. It is up to you to be in a good mood and nobody else should be able to spoil that. The moral of the day was " If it is to be …… it is up to me" . And always look on the bright side of life.

Some Class Reaction

"It seems we have 50,000 thoughts a day and that 40,000 are negative and only 10,00 thoughts are positive."
Brian Cruise

"Just because someone shouts at you doesn't mean you have to be sad for the res of the day"
Robert O'Farrell.

"...he talked to us about motivational thinking, red and green boxes and white rabbits."
Simon Caffrey