Friday 11th June 2010 was a proud day in St. Louis G.N.S. At an early morning ceremony, held on the front lawn, the newly-elected Monaghan Rose and former St. Louis’ pupil, Noelle Clerkin, hoisted our first Green Flag.The flag was awarded by An Taisce in recognition of the effort being made in the school to reduce and minimise the amount of waste we send to landfill.

The ceremony was attended by members of the B.O.M., the Parents’ Association, Mr. Niall O’Connor, Monaghan County Council’s Environmental Officer, Mrs. Anna-Mai Rooney, School Principal and all the staff and pupils of the school. Mr. Hugh Doherty,B.O.M. acted as M.C. during the proceedings, deputising for Mr. Packie McAdam, Chairman of the B.O.M. who was unable to attend.

In their speeches, Mr. Doherty, Mr. O’Connor and Mrs. Rooney all paid tribute to the hard work and enthusiasm of the Green Schools’ Committee, guided and led by Ms. Anne Brady and Mrs. Róisin Treanor. Sincere thanks was also expressed to Mrs. Rose Murray and Mr. Jim Corrigan, Caretaker, for all their help. Some members of the committee outlined the work they have been doing over the past fourteen months, which has involved the support and participation of all the pupils in our school.

In May ’09 we held a competition among the pupils to see who could come up with the best slogan/motto that we could use as our Green Schools’ Code. The winners were Shauna Hetherington, Rang 6 and Lucy Loughran Rang 3 for these verses:

The Green Flag is our aim
So come on all you St. Louis Girls
Work as a team and be so very cool
And bring The Green Flag to our school!

Louis school was full of litter
I would like it to sparkle like glitter
To be like that we have to stop
The bins are now about to pop
Everyone needs to do their bit
Recycling isn’t so hard…..TRY IT!!!

The Green Schools’ Committee comprises representatives from each class. These reps report back to their classes and so help to keep all the children informed as to what plans the committee have and what tasks they are undertaking. The original committee members, who worked on the first Green Flag, are pictured below. These were: 6th Class: Jessica Connolly, Eimear O’Rourke (secretaries), Kate Doherty, Ciara Murray, Tyler Kivlehan. 5th class: Kate Aughey, Éadaoin Lavery, Clare McEnaney, Laura-Louise Reay. 4th class: Ciara Veale, Kate Dwyer, Mollie Murphy, Simone Clerkin.3rd Class: Abbie Woods, Jessica Murray, Molly Maguire, Muireann Harraghy. 2nd Class: Maria Mc Nally and Caoimhe O’Hanlon