Séamas O'Donnghaile

Bunscoil Mhic Reachtain

Subject: School Principal.
Your place of birth: Béal Feirste/Belfast
Studied at: Ollscoil Na Banríona/QUB.
First job: Labouring to plasterers.
What it taught me: The importance of teamwork and, more importantly, how blind I was not to have seen the opportunities school presented me with.
Family/status: Married.
Best advice anyone ever gave you
1. Ná déan nós 's ná bris nós. Neither make or break a custom. Really useful if you can remember it when needed!
2. Never let into your head what you wouldn't let into your house. 
3. Má tá an croí san áit cheart, titfidh rudaí eile isteach san áit cheart. M. Bn Mhic Sheáin Uasal (Pobal Bhóthar Seoighe).
4. What we do is all about people. Rev Dr Bill Shaw.
Best advice you could give someone thinking of a teaching career
1. See your classroom as a lifeboat and always bring yourself up to the level of the children you serve – and stay there.
2. Children may not remember what you were like as a teacher but they will remember what you were like as a person.
 
Séamas learned his Irish firstly in Iveagh Community Centre with Danny Murphy and in Cumann Chluain Ard, a voluntary organisation, with many great teachers: Seoirse, Albert, Liam, Éamonn and Breandán, to name a few. His Irish teacher in school was the late Seosamh Mistéil of Pobal Bhóthar Seoighe who made sure each boy in the class passed O-Level Irish.
Bunscoil Phobal Feirste gave Séamas his start in teaching after his PGCE year in St Mary's University College in 1998. He left there in 2001 to help the newly established Bunscoil Mhic Reachtain secure government funding and the recognition so hard fought for by its founders:  Máirtín Mac Cathmhaoil, Kate Clarke, Cathy Reilly, Geraldine Doherty and Eilís King. For Séamas, they and many others are the real heroes in community volunteerism and their work will always be an inspiration. 
Séamas believes that the best teachers he ever had were/are the children of Bunscoil Mhic Reachtain as well as their families. He is exceptionally proud to be associated with all the teaching and non-teaching staff in the school. Séamas will say that he is surrounded by these experts in education every day and that he is a very fortunate school Principal in the immersion sector.