QUIN National School pupil, Lauren Wall took a persuasive writing exercise to great heights this year, when, instead of writing to her teacher like the rest of her class, she wrote to the President of Ireland.
Fourth-class pupils at Scoil na Mainistreach were asked to write a letter to their teacher, Eleanor Gallagher, to try to persuade her where they would go on their school outing this summer.
While the majority of the class did the task as assigned, 10-year-old Lauren took matters into her own hands and wrote to President Michael D Higgins, asking him if her class could visit him at the Áras. Her endeavour resulted in fourt- class students travelling to Dublin last Friday, for a tour of Áras an Uachtaráin.
In her letter to President Higgins, which she sent on March 25 last the national school student wrote: “Hello, my name is Lauren Wall, I live in Quin, County Clare and I’m aware you are from Newmarket-on-Fergus. My grandfather, Mr Dick Langford, was a teacher of yours in college in Galway. We are doing an exercise in school to argue with our teacher that we can give her a feasible school tour to do. She says it must cost between €15 and €20 per child. I would love if you could do so, and all my class, by the way I’m in fourth class, if we could go on a school tour to your beautiful house. Please reply by Thursday April 3 or Friday, April 4. Regards truly, Lauren Wall.”
Although slightly past the required deadline set by the 10-year-old, President Higgins’ secretary replied on April 7, outlining that the group could be accommodated on Friday, June 6.
The group of 28 fourth-class pupils and five adults travelled to the Áras on Friday. However, due to President Higgins’ schedule of commitments, he was not in a position to meet the school’s group.
The visit included a tour of the formal rooms and the group were also treated to some nice refreshments while there.
Speaking about the outing, Ms Gallagher said the pupils “really enjoyed it. They got to see all the former Presidents, including the Clare Presidents, and we got a tour of the main rooms and got to see where the Government is signed in”.
Although they were not in a position to meet with President Higgins, the pupils are hoping there might be another opportunity to do so, and have already put pen to paper on that front.
“It was huge honour for us to see it. All the rest of the class wrote another letter to him because we knew we wouldn’t be seeing him and told him we are building our new school and asked if he would come and open the new school building,” Ms Gallagher revealed.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.