The Roundstone Youth Group

The Roundstone Youth Club meets every Friday evening in the local community hall.The Youth Club is a community inititive aimed at cultivating the youth in Roundstone by instilling them with a more culturing enriching perspective. The youth group does this by having a range of activities and projects in which they are given a lot of responsiblity. This gives them the opportinity to grow and mature through active participation. All members are given a variety of jobs such as creating brochures about drugs, alcohol, organisation and implimentation of weekend trips abroad to other countries as well as group discussion and educational evenings.

Mid night Mass for the - Roundstone Youth Club Members 1998 to 2008
November 22nd 2007 was the deb’s night for the last of the senior members of the Roundstone Youth club of their generation over the last ten years.

The reason why I am telling you this is that as we all know, the kids of today, even 10 years back tell you nothing.

I am guilty in asking Father McCarthy to associate this mid night mass for the Roundstone young people and their accomplishments, not only through the Youth club, but their every day life, with in the last ten years
Through the club we have had our ups and downs, with all sorts of emotions and situations, but it has been rewarding at the end of the day, just to see how they have turned out, I suppose  one has to realize it’s the passage of growing up, some left school early, straight in to a trade of all sorts, some  are in the process of being accountants, one or two joined the services, trainees in child care, nurses, already qualified etc, and so hopefully one day their talents will enhance the village and its  community, it has in fact already happened, we have today electricians, carpenters,  and our own Rosie Mannion’s new business in the village with her Hair Salon, is a perfect example, of the next generation, there are allsorts of possibility’s for the village. Collette King has become our post mistress, thanks to Michael Reynolds / Ferrons our post office was saved, and of course let us not forget the young talented rugby players as well as our own seonas dancers, and our incredible musiasians.

This is our chance to relate to you of their Youth Club days, this is not a tell tale story, it’s a story off accomplishments within the club, of their enthusiasm, and helping their contemporary’s, and working within the community and outside of their own environment.

We are know going to ask some of the youth to bring to the Alter as part of the offertory, symbols of their accomplishments and they themselves will give a little run down of their achievements in their own words.

Early Nineties;
Anne Delapp was the first person to start a youth club in Roundstone, with the idea to give the kids at that time, something to do and a place to go, during her time, some of her kids, as well as adults helped her out by becoming adult and youth leaders, Anne duly did run it up to 1998

1998:  Buzzy Mannion
With the Help of youth in Action, and Marie Feeney a work shop was started in Clifden for 12 year olds, for a stain glass making work shop, the four from Roundstone were Tommy Sheridan, Paul Delapp, Dominic King and Cirean Mullen, this was the start of the second part of the Roundstone Youth Club.
If you think about this, it has now continued for the last ten years, one certainly has no regrets.

1999 / 2001, Cormac Lowry
It was the start of working in Paul Newman’s Barrettstown Hole in the wall camp, in Kildare for the terminally ill children;
Barrettstown also gave positions of work experience, for a period of time to Ailpha Creane, Lorna Hill and Cormac Lowry, Patrick McDonagh.
Over the said time, still working with Barrettstown, 16 of the Roundstone Group with Martin Conneely, Betty Creane, and Richard, took part in various activities; these were simple, but necessary tasks to be preformed. We fundraised for the Barrettstown Children, we raised a thousand pounds, and some office equipment was purchased, and then presented to the Barrettstown Hole in the wall Camp.

2001.2002, Thomas King
A few years ago, a small group made they’re way from Roundstone to a town in the north of France called Noyelles Sous Lens. The goal of this advance party was to look into the possibility of a twinning between our little village and this larger mining town. After spending a couple of days there, as guests of the Mayor, an agreement was reached and signed on behalf of both communities.
Why a mining town you might ask? Well one of the main advantages from such twinnings is to benefit from the experience of different peoples, different cultures and different historical backgrounds. We offered the opportunity for the people of Noyelles to come to a coastal, fishing village; they in turn offered us the opportunity to explore their community and traditions.
In subsequent years, the young people of Roundstone have benefited immensely from this twinning and the annual trip to Noyelles Sous Lens is eagerly awaited and anticipated by all. Long may it continue?

2002;   Hughie O’Toole and Alibha Creane
Two  trophies was presented by the Clifden Chamber of Commerce’s for our participation in the annual St Patrick’s parade as well as being recognized for the work that helped Hughie O’Toole to take part in the Special Olympics, of which Hughie brought back a medal to Roundstone.

2003, David McDonagh
With our help of the youth club, Roundstone eventually twinned with the French Village Noyelles Sous Lens, with a view to a cultural exchange with other young people from abroad, this is still on going today.
We went to France last year, for the last time, for the time being, the Mayor of Noyelles Sous Lense presented to each of us a plate as a souvenir of our past visits of our generation

2003, Christopher McDonagh
In the same year of 2003, on the 24th October the Roundstone Youth Club went to City Hall in Dublin to be presented with a certificate and a small sculpture of the Children of Lia for we had won the National Faroige Citizens award for the publishing of a booklet on Drug Awareness, this was presented to us, by the then Minister of Law and reform Minister McDouwl

2004: May 1st.  Patrick McDonagh
Patrick Mc Donagh, Amanda Keane and Nicholas Griffin were invited to Poland, by the Mayor of Szezecinek to officially welcome on behalf of the Irish stroke Roundstone to celebrate the entering of Poland becoming a member of the European Union and to present the Irish flag, to the Mayor and have it officially flying in the square of Szezecinek , it remains still there today. We were thrown into a completely different situation and commitment, but we did the job.

2005,.  Collette King
We visited Poland again with a view for a possible secondary twinning, in the small town of Sciencheck, with Paul Delapp, Kieran Mullen, Dominic King, Theresa Mannion, Clara Conneely, and Collette King with Joanne Conneely as one of the leaders, the trip was successful, if not a little different, we agreed as a group, to wait for a few more years, to think again about twinning with Szezecienek, in Poland. I have to say, the doors are open, it might happen yet.

2006 /2007:  Davina Joyce
We are now 12 new members of the Roundstone youth, coming into the year 2008. Louise King, Youth Secretary, Devina Joyce, Youth chairperson, Lucy Mannion, Youth Treasurer, Hannah O’Toole, Rebecca Conneelly, (PRO),
Tara Coyne, (PRO) Fergal McDonagh, (PRO), Connor O’Malley, (PRO), Shane Mannion, Jason Lee, Ian McDonagh, Cathal Mullen, Cathal Mullen come to think of it is the last of the past group, so in fact  we are 11 new teenagers.

Louise King;
We are lucky to have three more new adult leaders to work with us on a rota basis, Martina Conneely, Lorraine Mannion, Ann Conneely and Katie Sheridan. We thank you for your help to keep the Roundstone youth Club going.

But tonight this is not just about the youth, we have to thank the past leaders, particularly Ann Delapp, Ann was the start of the club as I said earlier, ann with her various leaders ran it from the early nineties up to be exact, until 1998.

Betty Creane, came on board with the club in 1998, up until 2002, when the present adult leader Geraldine Coyne, lucky for us Geraldine is still very much involved, in more ways than one, then Katrina Keane came on board as a past member in 2005/ 2006.

We shall also have to recognise the parents of our young people and if you will excuse the pun for a job well done..

Over the years we have had some extraordinary experiences with these, now adults, and I should say we have also had the privilege of being with them, during those formative years. We can happily say, that there has been a lot of fun, I would really love relate a few stories about each one of them, but Christmas and the new year would be over by the time I finished relating stories of those extraordinary times with these wonderful quirky young people.

One thing we can be sure of, and I am sure you will agree with me, our Community can be proud of your young in so many ways.
These young people are our future “Praise Youth and Youth will prosper”. We do believe that children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way.

So over this Christmas period and coming into the year 2008, we should and do wish all those that have been mentioned this evening all the very best and luck in the world for your future,

Happy Christmas troops, I suppose in some ways, sadly it’s almost an end of an era but it is also a start of another, as we have just started this year with 12 other young teenagers, who will hopefully also interact with the community as the legacy given by the past young people.

Forty Four Past Youth Club Members:
Lisa Coyne, Tara Coyne, Marrion McDonagh, David McDonagh,(Chairman 2005) Patrick McDonagh, Brian McDonagh, Jonathan Magee,
Christopher McDonagh, (Chairman 2004), Ciaran Mullen, Cathal Mullen,
Katrina Keane, Amanda Keane, Joseph Mannion, (Chairman 2006)
Theresa Mannion, Lorraine Mannion, Cathal Nee, Martin Paul O’Donnell,
Sara O’Donnell, Dominic King, Kieran Delapp, Paul Delapp, Lorna Hill,
Ailpha Creane, Collette King, Damien O’Malley,(Chairman 2003) Emmet Ferron, John Sheridan, Tommy Sheridan, Kevin Conneely, Michael Sullivan, Tom Sullivan,
Cormac Lowry,(Chairman 2002/ 2003) Sorcha O’Keefe.
Finaly, thank you father McCathy for once again associating this Mass to bless and recognise their accomplishments of these young people that they justly deserve.