In the week leading up to the celebrations for St Patrick's Day, the colours of the Irish flags were seen across villages and towns, while words were uttered as Gaeilge and schools celebrated Seachtain na Gaeilge through wearing their national colours or celebrating their traditional culture.

On Friday last, before the children had a small break for St Patrick's Day, there were immaculate costumes on display, as the students of CBS Primary school, Mitchelstown embraced the week and wore fantastic outfits to celebrate the national feast day.

The Irish Coordinator Ber O'Sullivan has been the Irish coordinator in the school for 15 years and she said that fun days like this help the children to embrace Irish and what it has to offer.

Through her work, Ms O'Sullivan conducts Irish days in the staff rooms once a month where only Irish can be spoken, there are awards every fortnight for the person who speaks the most Irish in each class and she also does fun activities through Irish, such as word puzzles, games and Trath na gCeist.

"For their efforts at speaking Irish, they are then allowed to relinquish their school uniforms on the last day before St Patrick's Day and dress up in the green, white and gold," she said.

She added that the tide is turning in terms of the Irish language and that people's attitude towards it is improving, while the likes of Hector have made it more accessible in terms of popular culture.

Meanwhile, the students of St Fanahan's College got their inspiration from Irish culture when they prepared their acts for the Fionnchua Factor in the school, which was a form of X Factor to celebrate tradition through song and dance.

More than ten acts took part in the competition, showing how popular the concept of a competition through Irish was, with singers and dancers from each class group taking part.

In Scoil Pol, Kilfinane, Seachtain na Gaeilge was also marked, as students from first year enjoyed a ceili, as they got to grips with some unfamiliar traditional Irish dancing steps.

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