Gort

A surfing website co-designed by a Kilcolgan student, which has the potential to develop tourism in the West of Ireland, has scooped the top prize of €15,000 at the NUI Galway Student Enterprise Awards. WestCoastSurfer.com is the brainchild of Cian Brassil, a second year Information Technology student from Kilcolgan and Oisin Halpin, a third year Earth & Ocean Science student from Achill Island, County Mayo. They were presented with their prize by Minister of State for Small Business, John Perry TD, NUIG President, Dr James J Browne and NUI Galway Students’ Union President, Peter Mannion.Their goal is to design, build, promote, develop and manage a premier Irish surfing website. Judges were impressed with the WestCoastSurfer.com brand and its potential draw investment to the domestic economy. Chairperson of the judging panel, CEO of Creganna-Tactx Medical, Helen Ryan said “West Coast Surfer.com has huge growth potential and is well grounded in commercial reality with great opportunities for the West of Ireland. Both …

THE co-existence of wealth and poverty in South Galway towns like Portumna during the famine years will be examined as part of an interesting new social history project.The Irish Workhouse Centre in Portumna wants to preserve the workhouse’s stories and retell them to visitors. South-East Galway Irish Rural Development manager, Ursula Marmion is hoping to provide visitors to the centre with a history of the Irish workhouse on July 1 next.Known as paupers or inmates, they were the residents of the workhouse; a part of Irish history that has left memories of dire poverty.“They used to call them blackberry men because they ate the blackberries off the bushes. They were also known as knights of the road or itinerant workers,” explains Ms Marmion.The concept of developing a workhouse centre explaining the history of Irish workhouses seemed outlandish initially.“At the beginning I think they [local community] thought we were all a bit mad,” says Ms Marmion.However, the community has rallied around …

THE West on Track campaign has warmly welcomed Iarnród Éireann’s new range of developments on the Galway-Limerick section of the Western Rail Corridor. The group has also expressed satisfaction at the healthy passenger levels for its first year of operation,Over 250,000 journeys have been made across the Limerick-Galway route, including the Limerick-Ennis and Athenry-Galway commuter services, since it opened on March 30, 2010 and Iarnród Éireann has expressed confidence that service changes now in place will continue to attract more customers to the route.Following a successful trial period, the current online promotional fares of €10 each way on selected services between Limerick and Galway are to be extended until further notice. Iarnród Éireann has also said that new services introduced last month will give a boost to customers in the Galway area and along the Western Rail Corridor line from Galway to Limerick. New and changed services include a new Galway-Ennis evening commuter service departing Galway for Ennis at 6.30pm …

A HUGE response to the archaeological discoveries along the route of the Gort to Crusheen motorway has resulted in an extension of the exhibition at the Clare Museum.

UP to 100 secondary school pupils from all parts of the country attended a special free one-day Leaving Certificate Maths higher-level revision course provided by a former Gort Community School pupil.

FIVE budding whizz kids are celebrating their innovative flair this week after scooping first prize in a major national computer programming competition.Jake Farrell, Leon Holmes, Nathan Crawford, Brendan Winters and Jack Faherty, who are all aged between 10 and 12, developed a new computer game that won first prize worth €500 in the national Scratch competition in Tallaght Institute of Technology last Saturday.Scratch teaches computer programming concepts to young people and is administered by LERO, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre.Gort Family and Community Resource Centre recently ran a computer programming course for young people, which was facilitated by volunteer Steve Holmes. The five boys, who are all from the Gort area, were never involved in computer programming before and designed and developed an award-winning game. Steve, who works as a computer programmer in Avaya, a Galway-based global leader in enterprise communications systems, software and services, got the idea for the project while watching his son, Leon, completing his homework …

PROMISING young soccer players from South Galway will be given the opportunity of training with their contemporaries in an internationally renowned soccer academy in Brittany thanks to an international cultural exchange involving Gort Community School and a local secondary school.Last year, Gort Community School student, Joe Gaughan, who plays with Salthill Devon, trained with young soccer stars in En Avant de Guingamp, the school academy for the town’s professional soccer club.This is the club where Chelsea stars Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba and Arsenal centre-back Laurent Koscielny honed their skills before they were transformed into household names as a result of their English Premiership exploits.Soccer fanatics in a 20-strong group of second-year pupils from Gort Community School were delighted to get the opportunity to visit the club last week as part of the school’s French Language and Cultural Exchange. This is one of the sporting benefits of the third annual exchange between Gort Community School and Lycee Notre Dame.However, Gort …

COMMUNITY goodwill should be further tapped into to bring about projects that the State cannot afford to finance in the current climate, according to Galway junior minister Ciarán Cannon.