For the last nine years Cllr Mary Howard, Chairperson of the Ennis Phoenix Twinning Board has co-ordinated a Musical Instrument Appeal where instruments are collected and then donated to local schools, this allows the schools to build up a bank of instruments that can then be played by their students.
The genesis of the project was a visit by the St Mary’s High School Band who visited Ennis and participated in our St Patrick’s Day Parade ten years ago .
“While visiting local schools with the band we discovered that thirteen students were on music scholarships in Scoil ChrÃost RÃ, however they had limited access to instruments. The school has a very strong music ethos, where at that time every student could play the tin whistle. I decided I needed to come up with a mechanism to ensure these children could access instruments.”
Ms Howard said., “A few months later I came up with the idea for the instrument appeal, at the time I got great support from our then Chairman TJ Waters and out then secretary Margaret Neylon, both have since passed on and I think they would be delighted to see the appeal withstand the tests of time” she continued.
Each year the appeal is supported by Ennis students who are chosen to be our Ennis Phoenix Youth Ambassadors- this past year we had four such students Nancy Collins, Dearbhla Dorgan and Tadhg Mullooly from Rice College and Ruairi Howard who attends St Flannan’s College. Over the last number of months they collected donated instruments from their schools and local area.
“The past year being a Youth Ambassador has been a great experience, we hosted a teenager from Phoenix in our home for three weeks and we shared with him what an Irish teenager does here while on our school holidays. We introduced him to Irish culture and sports while showing him all the sights around County Clare. I then got to travel to Phoenix last July. It was an experience of a lifetime and I made lifelong friends along the way ” said Tadhg Mullooly.
“Over the years we have donated to a number of local schools – Scoil Chriost RÃ, and Holy Family Senior School, this past year we have included the Ennis Community College / Gaelcholáiste an Chlair and Doora National School this year, plus we have donated guitars to the Clare Youth Service, a piano to a local nursing home along with instruments to our Ukrainian friends in Lisdoonvarna.
A huge thank you to our wonderful Youth Ambassadors for their fantastic work in collecting the instruments. We are always on the lookout for instruments so let me or the students know if you have one to donate,” Cllr Howard concluded.