St Malachy’s Primary School applied to the British Council for a Comenius Project called Wonders of Solstice. The aims of Comenius are to develop knowledge and understanding among young people and education staff of the diversity of European cultures and languages, and the value of this diversity.

The application was successful and the school joins 6 other schools in Latvia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Poland.

Two of St Malachy’s staff (Miss McGleenon and Mrs McReynolds) visited Latvia in October where they met the other schools for the first time and began work on the project. They also visited some of the tourist attractions in and around Riga, the capital city. These included the Sun Museum, the Latvian Open Air Museum, Jurmala on the Baltic sea and a tour of the Old City. The P3 class in St Malachy’s will be learning about Latvian dance, folk culture and how Latvia celebrates the winter and summer solstice in the next few weeks. The next visit is to Bari in Italy, followed by Spain in April and Poland in June.

The 6 schools will visit St Malachy’s in April 2015 and we hope to bring them to Newgrange in County Meath to discover how the summer solstice is celebrated here. The other schools are already looking forward to visiting St Malachy’s Primary School and the Armagh locality and experiencing some of our traditional culture, song and dance.