Sharing the Past and Present

Posted: June 16, 2014

The port of Sligo, on the north-west coast of Ireland, saw the departure of 14 ships of Irish emigrants heading for New Brunswick following the potato famine during the mid-1800’s. Three years ago St. Andrew’s Elementary School in Miramichi took an interest in this historical event with a school-wide project based on Middle Island in the Miramichi  River estuary, which as a quarantine station, became the final resting place for some of these new arrivals. An historian in Sligo, becoming aware of this project, initiated contact with the ASD-N school to invite it to link with St. Brendan’s National School in Sligo. This was done so that pupils in both school could learn about each other, their communities, their way of life and about the events they had in common that took place more than 160 years ago. Both schools are in the process of preparing digital media to share with each other as part of an enrichment project and recently had a video conference using Skype ™ which gave them a chance to meet “face to face”.  To view photos of this event visit St. Andrew’s-St Brendan’s.