SOME 50 young people were presented with Gaisce gold awards or “goldies” by President Mary McAleese at a special ceremony in Dublin Castle yesterday.
The President’s award programme, now in its 25th year, honours achievement by young people in four areas: community involvement, personal skills development, physical recreation, and adventurous expedition.
Gold medals are awarded to individuals who achieve agreed goals in all four areas.
The 21 men and 29 women honoured at yesterday’s ceremony had travelled with their families from Tyrone, Galway, Donegal, Waterford and Cork to be presented with their awards at the State Apartments.
President McAleese commended the variety of experience and achievement celebrated by the awards, saying a curiosity “about what you can bring to life and what it can bring to you” lay at the heart of the programme.
She said the young people receiving awards had not waited for life “to grab them and test them but had instead gone out and grabbed life by presenting themselves to be tested”.
Their achievements were not merely a series of gratifying experiences, but were ones “that had deepened them, sharpened them and changed them quite profoundly”.
She said the imprint of the Gaisce gold award on their curriculum vitaes should signal to college applications officers, recruiters and employers that they were people of initiative, leadership, dynamism and self-discipline.
“It may well open doors to you in these early days of your adult lives and careers.
“But the imprint of Gaisce gold on your lives will reveal itself over your span of years.
“It will have helped awaken in you a determination to be considerably more than a mere spectator on the sidelines of life.
“You have put down a marker here today that you are now what you intend always to be active contributors to your own lives, to your community and to our society,” she said.
A record of nearly 17,000 young people from the ages of 15 to 25 participated in the Gaisce programme last year.
The awards are non-competitive and given at three levels: bronze, silver and gold.
Entrants must complete a task agreed between the participant and a president award leader volunteer.
Among the recipients yesterday was Wexford student Eoin Kenny who told the audience that participating in the Gaisce awards had literally turned his life “upside down”.
Under the skills challenge, he opted to learn the cello. At the time, four years ago, he was a first-year student studying engineering at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
Now he is on the brink of completing a degree in music.
He also spoke of the experience of teaching two special needs students how to play music, as part of the community involvement challenge.
Aideen MacInerney from NUI Galway, who took up running, learned Latin and completed a volunteering assignment in Estonia as part of her challenges, said the award programme helped her to do things that she would otherwise not have had the courage to attempt.
LIST OF 50 GAISCE GOLD AWARDEES
Adam Beatty - Ardnacrusha, Co Clare
Kate Bonar - Letterkenny, Co Donegal
Adam Brennan - Ballinakill, Co Laois
Ann Browne - Lifford Co Donegal
Chris Corrigan - Killiney, Co Dublin
Claire Cullen - Clane, Co Kildare
Joanne Dawson - Tullow, Co Carlow
Karen Deasy - Montenotte, Cork
Brian Devlin - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Mark Donnelly - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Ailish Dunphy - Portlaw, Co Waterford
Thomas Francis- Ballyvaughan, Co Clare
Stephen Gallagher - Ballymun Ballymun Dublin 9
Sarah Gallagher - Maryborough Hill Cork
Chiara Garbutt - Lucan, Co Dublin
Fiona Gillespie -Naas, Co Kildare
Daniel Gorman - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Martha Halpin - Westport, Co Mayo
Eliza Harvey - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Emma Hogan - Dublin 16
Aaron Irwin - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Jennifer Jones - Midleton, Co Cork
Clodagh Joyce - Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Eoin Kenny - Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford
Caoimhe Kenny - Palmerstown, Dublin
Áine Kenny - Trim Co Meath
Bernard King - Poles, Co Cavan
Declan Leonard - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Daniel Lunney - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Aideen Óg MacInerney - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Ciara Malone - Castleblayney ,Co Monaghan
Simon McDonald - Abbeyleix, Co Laois
Emma McMullin - Foxrock, Co Dublin
Anne Millar - Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim
Majella Moloney - Smithfield, Dublin 7
Justine Murphy - Mitchelstown, Co Cork
Zoë Murphy - Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Sandra Murtagh - Greenhills, Dublin 12
Christine Nolan - Arklow, Co Wicklow
Brian O'Connell - Mungret, Co Limerick
Sean O'Brien - Killiney, Co Dublin
David O'Hara - Maynooth Co Kildare
Áine O'Meara - Enniscorthy, Co Wexford
Ciara O'Meara - Borrisokane, Co Tipperary
Catherine O'Shea - Letterkenny, Co Donegal
Sarah Owens - Omagh, Co Tyrone
Iain Patterson - Killygordon, Co Dongal
Daniel Saunders - Ballymun, Dublin
Emily Watson - Waterford City, Co Waterford
Tiedong Yang - Dublin 16 - China
