| St Mac Dara's Community College Coláiste Pobail Mac Dara Naofa |
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| Established | 1982 |
| Location | Templeogue, Dublin 6W, Ireland |
| Students | 863 |
| Religious order | Multidenominational school |
| Staff |
60 |
St. Mac Dara's Community College (Irish: Coláiste Pobail Mac Dara Naofa) is a school situated on Wellington Lane, Templeogue in South Dublin. It accommodates both Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate students. It is run by the Dublin Vocational Education Committee (V.E.C) and is a non-fee paying school. It has a Transition Year programme which is usually restricted to one class, with a maximum of thirty students per year. The school also has a selection of sports and extra curricular activities for its students to choose from including Gaelic Football, Hurling, Soccer, Rugby, Basketball, Golf and Canoeing.
In August 2009, the Irish Times League Table decided that the school was the 6th best in Ireland, while being the best Public School in the country.[1]
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The school regularly hosts trips and foreign exchange programmes to different countries.
Past trips have included France, Scotland, Germany, Spain, Holland and ski trips to Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, and New Hampshire, USA. 2nd year students will be going on a trip to New York in 2010.
The school has an annual Celtic trip, which is organised by Irish teacher Mr. Alan Curran. Students and teachers travel to Scotland to see Celtic F.C. play and meet the team.
The school was involved in a charity project, where a small group of students travelled to Honduras/Nicaragua. St Mac Dara's Community College is Ireland's number one charitable school for a sixth time in a row raising around €60,000 per year for the Irish charity Trócaire.
In order to raise money each year group is given a certain task to do. First years do a sponsored 24 hour fast, second years do a table quiz, and third years sponsor Mr. Culleton, who is a teacher in the school, to do an embarrassing undertaking, which has previously included dyeing his hair pink.
Fourth and fifth years do a soccer marathon in which the students, some staff and celebrities play football all day. The sixth years organized a "Bomb Mr. Curran" fundraiser where students paid to throw balloons at the teacher.
In 2010, the school raised more money than any other school in Ireland for Trócaire for the 10th year in a row.
St Mac Dara's enjoys numerous facilities such as four science laboratories (one which has been newly refurbished), three home-economics rooms with essential appliances, two woodwork and two engineering rooms, both of which have newly installed equipment e.g. lathes, pillar drills etc., two computer rooms with over 30 broadband-enabled computers, two technical graphics rooms and over 40 classrooms. St Mac Dara's recently constructed a separate P.E. hall and gymnasium on the school grounds, which is equipped with shower rooms and a full gym.
In 2010, St. Mac Dara's was chosen with 100 other schools to be part of the Government's 100mbits Broadband Iniatitive. This will incorporate every room having a smartboard, a laptop being broadband enabled at 100mbits/sec, and projectors being installed in every room too. The work will take place over summer of 2010.
The College has many organizations and societies including a Student Council, History Society, choir, orchestra and a Gaeilge society.
The college's Amnesty International Group is run by Mr. Shane Culleton, and encourages the campaigns of Amnesty International. The group organise an annual Fair Trade Fair where fair trade products are sold, and various other fundraisers throughout the year. Some of the most recent include the "May Day Gig" held on 1 May 2008, a "Rag Day" on 30 April 2008 which raised over €2,000, and a table quiz held on 29 April 2008.
On 10 March 2009, the St. Mac Dara's choir participated in the V.E.C festival of music. The choir sang Abba's Thank You For The Music, and two soloists from the choir performed The Chiffons' version of One Fine Day. In 2010 four soloists performed "I Got Rhythm" by George Gershwin. The following year, the school choir sang Rihanna's "Umbrella".
In October 2006, St. Mac Dara's was chosen over many schools in the area to be used to shoot an important scene in the forthcoming film Assault of Darkness[2], starring Vinnie Jones. Some of the 4th and 5th year students were used as extras in the scene which was filmed in one of the science rooms.
2007/2008 was the 25th year of the college's existence. Celebration events included a school magazine and the musical production 'Carmen'.
The Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin visited the school on 5 March 2008 as the guest of honour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the school. The occasion was celebrated by invited teachers, staff, parents and students.
From 9 to 13 March 2009, St. Mac Dara's Community College held its first Political Awareness Week, incorporating activities such as a trip to Dáil Éireann and debates chaired by RTÉ Six One News Anchor Bryan Dobson and Newstalk 106 and RTÉ Rugby Pundit George Hook and attended by a number of Irish senior politicians and party leaders.
The full list of politicians in attendance:
Thursday 12th March
Friday 13th March
From 5 to 9 October 2009, St. Mac Dara's Community College held its second Political Awareness Week.
The event incorporated many different activities such as a trip to RTÉ to attend current affairs programme, The Frontline hosted by Pat Kenny; a "Rag Day" (with a total of €1,200 being donated to the Dublin Simon Community); a trip to Dáil Éireann, and the main event of the week, "The Leaders Debate", attended by many of Ireland's senior politicians and party leaders.
The event was covered by Irish media including RTÉ,[3] TV3,[4] and the Irish Times.[5][6] The debate was chaired once again by RTÉ News lead anchor, Bryan Dobson
The event was organised by Chairperson Dale McDermott and a committee of 6th year students with the guidance of school teacher Mr Shane Culleton.[7]
The full list of politicians in attendance: