Cork school salutes memory of teacher

A former teacher of Coláiste Muire in Cobh was remembered at a school event by her colleagues recently, when they dedicated their new library to her memory.

Anne Mansworth, who sadly passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2014, taught English and resource classes at the school.

The opening ceremony of the library last week was a touching occasion, as Anne’s granddaughter, Faye Creevy, who is now in first year at Coláiste Muire, unveiled a plaque in honour of her grandmother.

Faye was only two when her grandmother passed away.

Fergus O’Brien, principal of the school, said: “It’s fitting that Anne’s granddaughter unveiled the plaque on the tenth anniversary year of Anne’s death.

Anne was very well-read and a huge advocate of reading, particularly for young people, so we are delighted to honour her memory by dedicating our newly-revamped library to her.

Local author Michelle Dunne opened the library and said she was thrilled to be asked to launch it on such a special occasion.

She is a past pupil of the school and has many fond memories of her time there.

Michelle admitted that, while she wasn’t highly academic, her writing was encouraged and nurtured by her English teacher Sr Mary.

Michelle recounted an anecdote where the gentle nun, who normally wouldn’t give out to students, was returning essays to her class. She tapped her finger on the A+ that Michelle had received and wagged her finger at her while saying nothing.

Michelle was perplexed how, having received her first ever A+, she felt her teacher was giving out to her.

After the class, Sr Mary chatted to her and advised her: “If you worked as hard as you talk, you would be an amazing writer.”

Sr Mary chased her for work, and not only has Michelle still got the gift of the gab today, but she is a prolific writer.

Michelle, who was a former army officer, wrote about what she knew. She used her and her army colleagues’ experiences as the basis for a series of novels which she wrote.

The main character in these novels was Lindsey Ryan, a former soldier and peacekeeper trying to settle back into civilian life while in the clutches of PTSD. This was received well and has been optioned as a TV series.

This year alone, Michelle has published two psychological thrillers, The Good Girl andThe Hotel Maid. She was asked to write the screen play for The Good Girl so that it could also be filmed for TV.

The Cobh author has another book due to be published by April, 2025. Added to this busy writing schedule, Michelle is also involved in organising and speaking at arts events such as the Spike Island Literary festival, the Cross Drift Arts festival in Garnish Island, and the Murder One festival which will take place in Dublin in October.

She admitted that the festivals counterbalance the solitary job of writing. While speaking at the opening of the library at Coláiste Muire, she advised students who were in attendance to enjoy their time there, as it is the only time in life that you get to spend that much time with your friends.

She advised them not to let devices get in the way of talking to friends.

While acknowledging the wealth of information and enjoying what was now at their fingertips in the library, she quoted fantasy writer George RR Martin, saying: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

All secondary schools received a School Library Books Capital Grant in 2022. The amount of money given was based on the number of students in the school. Coláiste Muire received €10,000 and proceeded to invest in new titles for their school library.

They were advised by their local county library in Cobh that students would not read anything over five years old. As a result, they filled their library with more than 2,000 brand new titles of books from all different genres.

There was a lot of work involved in this as they had to catalogue each title and scan it into their online system. A team of Transition Year students took this on as a project with their teachers Ellen O’Neill, Annette Sutton, Robert Johnston, and Aedín Johnston. They dedicated all their lunchtimes during 2023 to completing the task.

Such was the excitement about the library in the school, that the team of these TY students opened the library unofficially last year. It was open during lunchtime for lending.

However, this year the school has timetabled junior classes for a reading class in the library once a week.

Ellen O’Neill, one of the leading teachers in the project said: “So far, this has been very successful in encouraging students to turn off their devices and quietly read for 40 minutes.”

The library is also open for one lunchtime during the week to facilitate borrowing by all students and it’s proving to be an enormous success.

The plan had always been to dedicate the library to Anne Mansworth’s memory as it had been very close to her heart when she worked there.

So, it was fitting that her granddaughter whom she cherished unveiled the plaque to her grandmother which stated that she “was gone but not forgotten”.