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Parents and residents protesting outside national school while sub contractors attempted to remove their material from the school.

The much acclaimed radio documentary 'Take No More' on the plight of the Kilfinane National School received a gold award at the New York Festivals Award.

The story of the school's struggle for a new building grabbed headlines on the national stage and at the beginning of December, RTERadio 1 documented the story from when they first moved into the school on September 3, right up to the heated stand off between parents, staff and builders on November 22.

Produced by the Kilfinane company Grey Heron Media (Diarmuid McIntyre, Mairead O'Connor and Mary McDonnell), the documentary 'Take No More' brought the plight of the South Limerick school across the airwaves to the whole nation, as listeners were gripped by the turmoil and panic, which rippled through the school on that single day just a month before Christmas.

Speaking to The Avondhu after they won the award, Diarmuid explained that his own son is a student in the school so he was there first as a parent and also as someone recording every moment of the day.

While most documentaries happen before or after the fact, this one had the edge of being right there in the heart of the struggle, as the microphone captured everything so that the listeners feel as if they were in there with the parents and also outside with the sub contractors.

Damien added that while the story is very much a part of life in Kilfinane, it had international resonance.

"It's as local as it can possibly be, it's so specific to Kilfinane yet it resonates with people across the world. It's already being played across Canada," he said.

"When we do documentaries, we want to let the people in them feel afterwards that they can recognise themselves and what they said hasn't been distorted. We weren't there to set up our version of the story. It's their truth - sometimes distilled down into its purest form," Damien told The Avondhu.

The documentary, which is available on http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/documentary-podcast-kilfinane-national-school.html is a gripping recount of the events of that day, told from the perspectives of the parents, staff members and contractors and builders.

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