Rang 71, The Story of Bunscoil Phobal Feirste

This Thursday 3 September on BBC Two, 19:00-19:40 will see the screening of Rang 71, an Imagine Media documentary on Bunscoil Phobal Feirste, the first Irish medium school in the North. The school was founded to educate the children of the Pobal Feirste Gaeltacht community and it remains a thriving school to this day and has led the way in terms of Irish medium education. The parents who founded the school did so despite the threat of imprisonment from the Stormont regime and without any funding, I am unsure which was more courageous. I understand from people who have had a preview that it is an exceptional piece of work, one not to miss.

The founding of the school has been described as a revolutionary act, I would certainly agree, much the same way as I would argue that Pearse’s founding of St. Enda’s was his most revolutionary act.

Ciarán Dunbar

Freelance journalist, working mostly in Irish.

Have my own independent news website – antuairisceoir.com – which is in constant need of material.

I am the former editor of the newspaper Gaelscéal, www.gaelsceal.ie