VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2 Portmarnock Community School Transition Year Newsletter Glendalough Trip 2016 By Lauren Fitzmaurice On Thursday the 10th and Friday the 11th of We then went down to the self-servicing kitchen and February, 32 transition year students set off to cooked our own meals. The meals ranged from Glendalough for the adventure journey aspect pasta and hot dogs to sausage sandwiches and of their ‘Gaisce’ award. We met at the school curry. We then all relaxed in the hostel reception carpark at 9:15, all wrapped up in our hats and until 10:00 pm before heading to bed. scarves, ready for the long day ahead. The bus The next morning we were awoken bright and early journey was exciting and fun, songs were at 6:50 by Mr Dempsey, and we all went down for sung, and everyone was looking forward to the breakfast. After that we had to bring all of the sheets two days ahead. down to the laundry room and clean up our rooms. We reached Glendalough at around 11:00, Then at 8:30, once we were all packed and ready to and started the hike pretty much straight away. go, we began the second day of our adventure jour- The hike was a shock to most of the students, ney. We hiked for 5 hours the second day, part of as none of us were expecting it to be as tough which was up a waterfall. The views were just gor- as it was. We had our first lunch at 1:00, which geous. We the arrived at the bus at 1:30pm, and was much needed after the morning we’d had. arrived at the school at 2:30pm. We then continued on hiking, taking regular Overall, the trip was a great experience for every- breaks in order to regain some of our energy. one who took part. We would like to thank Then after climbing a hill which was quite slip- Mr.Curran, Mr.Dempsey, Ms McGlynn and Ms. pery and scary, we had our second lunch sit- Hughes for making this trip possible for us. ting on the boardwalk overlooking the lake, which was beautiful. We then continued on, until we reached the hostel at 7:00pm. The hostel was called ‘An Óige’ and was definitely not what I was expecting. The rooms consisted of single and bunk beds, and a bathroom. After we were all given our rooms, we all got a chance to get our- selves ready for dinner. Inside this issue: TY Play President Trump Community Care Hairspray The Musical Sports News Cúrsa Cumrasáide with Gaelinn. By Lauren Fitzmaurice This year, 10 transition year students were sent on a Media Course with Gaelinn, an organization which work to promote the Irish lan- guage all over the country. The course lasted 5 days, and was done completely through the Irish language. The main focus of this course was to learn the basic skills used to create a radio show and a short film. At first, we started by learning the most important terms that would be useful to us throughout the week. We were then put into groups, and started to write our own radio scripts. We got to pick everything from the ‘ord reatha’ to the ‘ceol aitheantas’, which i found to be really fun. We then practiced and practiced until we were ready to visit ‘Raidió na Life’ to record our show. This was my highlight of the whole course, the whole experience in the radio station was incredible. We met with the ‘innealtóir fuaime’ who talked to us about how Irish radio works. Then it was our turn to enter the studio and record ! It was so funny and enjoyable to record the show, and also to listen to others record theirs. On the last two days, Thursday and Friday, we created two short films. We came up with a storyline, script, and created a storyboard. We got to use these big cameras which were pretty cool, and we re- corded our short films. We then had to edit the films, and add the music and sound effects, which was a difficult process, but it worked out well. I have always had a great love for the Irish language, so the fact that this course was done completely through it made it even more amazing. ‘Ba mhaith linn buíochas mór a ghábháil le Gaelinn agus lenár múinteoirí gaeilge le haghaidh an taithí iontach sin, bhaineamar an- taitneamh as’. News TY Ballymun Trip 2016. By Emer Kenny On the 1st of December everyone in Ms.O’Driscoll’s TY music class trav- elled to Ballymun playschool for travelling children. We all learnt many Christ- mas songs and had them prepared and ready to perform when over there. We learnt “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, “Jingle Bells”, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, “Silent Night” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. We came to school all dressed in our Christmas jumpers and Santa hats with our Instruments. Joey Yeap, Aoife Carthy, Hannah Murray and Hailey Bonner all purchased presents to bring. They bought Barbie dolls for the girls and toy trucks for the boys. With their left over money they bought a large toy kitchen for the school itself. We got some pictures in the school and then all got on the bus to leave for 9. We were all really excited and ready to go during the short drive on the bus. When we got there all the kids were sitting down and waiting for us to come in. We said “Hi” to them and Ms.O’Driscoll introduced us to them. We sang all of our songs and then the kids sang some that they had prepared themselves. We had a brother and sister sing a song together, a little girl sing “Barbie Girl” and all the class sing their songs. After the songs the class were surprised by a very special visitor that got them all excited. Santa and Mrs.Clause came and made sure they were all being good and gave them their pre- sents. We then spent about an hour talking to the kids and play- ing with them. They were all really well behaved and easy to play with. When we left we got a big “Thank you” from all the kids and they looked delighted with their presents and the good day we all had. On the way home we made a stop into McDonalds then came home after having a fantastic day. News President Trump By Robert Richmond Yes, really. It seemed like a joke to pretty much everyone that Donald Trump had managed to get this far. CNN gave him a 1 % chance to win the Republican Nomination, The Huffington Post gave him a 1.5% chance to beat Hillary Clinton and the New York Times had a 84% chance of Clinton winning with 322 electoral votes to Trump’s 185. Yet here we are, and Donald Trump has become President-Elect of the United States and pulled off quite possibly the greatest political upset of all time. In a year where Leicester won the Premier League, Brexit happened and Toblerones changed shape, Trump’s victory was perhaps the most surprising, and that’s saying something! On November 8th, Americans across the country went out to the polls to vote for their next presi- dent. The choices, despite multiple third party candidates like Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein, were essentially Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, Secretary of State and Senator of New York, and Republican Nominee Donald Trump, chairman of the Trump Organisation, multi-billionaire and business tycoon. Essentially every sin- gle poll showed Clinton winning by around 4-5% and her victory was all but assumed by the me- dia. Early on things looked good for Clinton, the Latino turnout had increased massively and more women usually vote than men. Also, 70% of voters said Trump’s language about women had bothered them, as opposed to 61% being bothered by Hillary’s use of a private email served and her subsequent deletion of 33,000 emails. She was leading most of the swing states like Florida, North Carolina and Ohio at the beginning of the count as well. However soon things took a bad turn for Hillary. While Latino voters did indeed increase, to the shock of most people, Trump received more women, black, latino and LGBT votes than Mitt Romney, who ran against Obama in 2012. He also beat Hillary with white women in a shocking twist, getting 53% of their vote. He also won in states where a Clinton victory was all but assured, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Hillary’s supporters were seen crying at her victory celebration in New York, and were eventually told to leave by her advisor, John Podesta after Hillary conceded the election in a private call to Trump. Hillary show up for her rally, presumably gathering her thoughts and pulling herself together after a loss to and election she had been training for 40 years for and then lost to a businessman with no political experience. Under- standably, she was very upset. On the other hand, Trump’s celebration was the complete opposite. The people there were filled with hope about the promises of a new America and a stunning upset, as Trump not only won, but won in an electoral landslide, getting 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232. The new President- elect soon stepped out with his friends and family to publicly accept the result and expressed his goal to make them proud and unite the country.