On Monday the 6th of March, Ms Kennedy, Ms Sheehan, and a small group of Leaving Cert History students represented KCS at a ceremony commemorating 175 years since the Irish tricolour flag was first flown by Thomas F. Meaghar.

The ceremony was held in the SETU Sports Campus in Waterford. After a brief tour of the campus, we took our seats and waited for An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to arrive. Many Chancellors, mayors and other representatives were also in attendance. The entire auditorium was filled with students and teachers from different schools all over the country.

The ceremony began with an actor impersonating Thomas F. Meaghar, who told us the story of his life and how the Irish tricolour came to be. The co-founders of the Thomas F. Meaghar Foundation, Reverend Canon Michael Cavanagh and Senator Mark Daly gave inspiring speeches about the importance of history for young people and encouraged us to take the stories of the past with us into our futures.

It was then An Taoiseach’s turn to speak, he delivered a short but moving speech. We were then treated to a performance by a sibling sean-nos duo, Seamus and Caoimhe, with both singing and playing of traditional music.

The climax of the ceremony was reached when a representative of each school present was gifted a tricolour flag for their school. These flags had been individually flown from the very spot where Thomas F. Meaghar first did 175 years ago and were formally presented to the students by members of the Defence Forces. We then all stood to sing the National anthem to conclude the ceremony.