What Europe Means To Us

Heading photo: Development officer Stephanie Moynihan Maeve Byrne, Rachel Gaffney & Clara O’Leary after the Communicating Europe Initiative.

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This article was written by six Transition Year students from Millstreet Community School, Cathy Buckley, Clara O’Leary, Maeve Byrne, Rachel Gaffney, Madison Gallahue Murphy and Faye O’Sullivan. This group was formed as we volunteered to do a short presentation on behalf of the school in the Communicating Europe event on the 1st of February, facilitated by IRD Duhallow. There were three schools from the Duhallow area and two MEPs, Ms. Deirdre Clune and Mr. Billy Kelleher, on the call. The theme of this call was “What Europe means to you as Irish Citizens”.

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Firstly, what comes to mind when people mention Europe in our locality, the biggest event was the Eurovision in 1993. It took place in the Green Glens arena on the 15th of May. Niamh Kavanagh represented Ireland and won. People from all over Europe came to watch the song contest. Millstreet is famously known for hosting this as it was unusual to have such a big event in a small town rather than the capital city. It also brought us closer to our other European countries. Millstreet is also Ireland’s most complete equestrian venue. Every year they host showjumping, eventing and the mountain games. These normally take place every three years in either the green glens arena or Drishane Castle. Millstreet town has a wide variety of European cultures. In the recent past, Millstreet has had the highest proportion of polish nationals in Ireland. We also have a high percentage of Lithuanians, Romanians and many other European nationals here in Millstreet. Our twin town is Pommerit-le Vicomte in France.

This makes us connected with different towns within Europe. We did a survey with the TYs in MCS to examine the knowledge of the pupils in our school. We asked them questions about the EU. Most of the questions we asked were European Parliament based. There are 11 European youth goals. Our project ties in with the first goal which is connecting EU with youth. This is because we did a survey with TY students about the European Union and gave them a presentation on the topic. Millstreet has a lot of involvement with Europe. We have a lot of different events here as well as a lot of different nationalities here. After doing this survey, we conclude that our TYs have someknowledge of the EU but there is room to learn more.

The survey

- Who is the leader of the EU?

The majority of people answered this correctly.

-In what year did Ireland join the European Union?

Most people answered this correctly saying 1973, but there were a variety of different answers which shows a lack of knowledge about the EU in our school.

-How many MEPs representing Ireland are there?

It was clear from our survey that most people did not know the answer.

-Do you feel undereducated about the EU?

22 people said yes, 3 said no and 14 said maybe

-Would you be interested in learning more about the EU?

24 people said yes and 15 people said no.

The TY Class From Millstreet Community School