St Brigid still working her magic in Carlow and beyond
Pupils from Bennekerry NS donated a phenomenal €4,000 to worthy causes by making and selling St Brigid's crosses
SAINT Brigid is still working her magic. We made hundreds of crosses this year and people loved them,” said retired teacher June Farrell of the hundreds of traditional crosses that she and her team of experts made this year.
The sale of the crosses at local churches went on to make an impressive €5,000, which was donated to two great causes – a school in Nairobi and Carlow Women’s Aid.
Though June retired from her job in Holy Family NS four years ago, she is drawn back to the schools in Askea parish to teach the youngsters in fifth and sixth-class in Holy Family, Tinryland NS and Bennekerry NS how to make the beautiful crosses. Not only that, such is the demand for the crosses that June’s group of friends, as well as members of the Go Léir Women’s Group, all roll up their sleeves and get stuck into creating the crosses made from fresh rushes.
She’s been making them for 22 years now after the idea was first introduced by Fr Tom Little.
“Back then, none of us really knew how to make them and we’d no Google to look up how to, so we taught ourselves, really. We’ve been going ever since and this year we made hundreds of crosses. People adore them, they send them to America and elsewhere. It’s not a hard sell. St Brigid is still working her magic. I love it,” said June.
Not only did the national school children learn how to make the crosses, a group of them from Bennekerry NS even did demonstrations at local Masses to show the congregation how it’s done. Catherine Nolan, who volunteers with the Makura Promotion Centre, a centre for homeless boys in Nairobi, Kenya also talked about the work that’s carried out there.
“Catherine spoke at Mass about the work that they do and that went down really well. People really love the crosses, though, so it wasn’t hard to sell them,” continued June.
After a huge amount of hard work by June, her friends and the local children, a phenomenal amount of money was raised, with €4,000 being donated to the school in Nairobi and €1,000 being presented to Carlow Women’s Aid.
