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In Pictures: Songs, a poem and plenty of blue and yellow in Wolfhill, The Swan and Ballyadams schools

12th October 2023

After a great day in Holy Family in Portlaoise yesterday, we headed the opposite direction today – deep into St Joseph’s territory.

Our first stop brought us to The Swan where 28 pupils are split between two classrooms.

The Swan has a fine tradition of nurturing some of St Joseph’s finest ever players – with Joe Higgins and the Kelly brothers, Colm, Tom and Stephen all past pupils.

And plenty of those who will take to the field for the Senior and Minor finals on Sunday are of The Swan.

James Kelly, Jack Gorman plus Jeremy and Jamie Kelly all went here – with the latter pairs younger brother Patrick Joseph currently in senior infants.

Of the minors, Callum Hogg, Tadgh Dineed and Bobby Rowan are all former students of The Swan.

After our visit there, we made the short trip up to Wolfhill NS where we had 20 pupils in two classrooms.

Under the guidance of principal Ms Kathleen Boland and teacher Caoimhe McElhinney, the children remixed their own version of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ and performed it for us.

We then headed off to the bigger of the three schools – Ballyadams NS – who have 104 boys and girls.

We were joined by former Laois manager Sean Dempsey who entertained the children with stories of his time in the school.

Principal Rory Stapleton is set to line out for Annanough in the Junior A final on Friday night – and he proudly wore their colours.

In Fifth Class, Harry Brennan composed a poem which he proudly read for us and we will print it below.

St Joseph’s

Start it off with Jack Lacey, as you know by now, he is quite pacey;
Pass it on to Brian Daly and as usual, he’ll score Daily;
Offload it to O’Flaherty and with him, we will absolutely batter yee;
Give the ball to Adam Campion because he wants to be a champion;
Pass the ball to Dylan Doyle, with his skills as smooth as oil;
Finally, give it to Mikey Keogh because Mikey Keogh will hit it low;
Come on St Joseph’s!!