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Congratulations to our first year Arts student Lorcán Tuohy-Donnelly, who was awarded a Gold Gaisce Award by President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins.

Gaisce – The President’s Award is a self-development programme for young people between the ages of 15-25, which can enhance confidence and well-being through participation in personal, physical, community and team challenges. It is a direct challenge from the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, to all young people to dream big and realise their potential.

As part of his award, Lorcán built on his SCUBA diving skills; and walked the Grand Canal way, an 80-kilometre journey which he completed in four days, camping and staying in self-catering accommodation. Lorcán volunteered as a Safer Internet Day Ambassador with Webwise, the Irish Internet Safety Agency. Through this work, Lorcan wanted to promote online safety education programmes in local schools to avoid bullying, blackmail and extortion. He also worked on a project by Dúchas.ie to transcribe a collection of folklore stories compiled by schoolchildren last century in Ireland.

He said of the award: “Gaisce helped me personally quite a lot to keep up with things that I enjoy. Study for a lot of students is quite overwhelming. The gold helped because it gave me distractions and time off from my study. It gave me confidence.”The award runs in the family as Lorcan’s mother Sinéad received her Gold Gaisce Award 23 years ago from President Mary Robinson.