So during May-June, we continued delivering a series of coding workshops to primary schools in Abbey, Ballinlough, Creggs and on the island of Inishbofin.
With the ongoing closure of village post offices, shops, Garda stations, hostelries and the decline in the traditional parish church attendance (which provided opportunities for local people to meet up weekly) as well as the economic difficulties in maintaining full-time family farming, it is the village school that acts as the heartbeat of the Irish countryside.
In spite of the severe challenges/threats of the present, I am optimistic that a sustainable technology-supported organic-based mixed agricultural sector with a Circular Economy process will be the future of the Irish countryside providing in the process quality products and healthy foodstuffs for the nation’s population and overseas markets.
So it is essential that in the interim local country schools are nurtured in order to keep the spirit of community alive in rural Ireland.
Finally, what I also love about visiting these schools is that more and
more I met children whose older siblings I mentored, or even sometimes
teachers that I taught science and coding too when they themselves were
children in primary schools!
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