Clare County Library wins Excellence in Local Government awards 2020

Clare County Library was announced as the winner of the Best Library Service award in the Chambers Ireland, Excellence in Local Government Awards 2020 for their project 'Connections: Stories by Syrian Families in County Clare'.

Eleven Syrian pupils from first class upwards along with older sister, and some mothers attended a number of writing and drawing workshops in Ennistymon Library from November to mid December 2019. This resulted in the creation of a beautiful book entitled ‘Connections’ which was launched at Ennistymon Library on Tuesday the 25th of February 2020. It was funded by Poetry Ireland, Clare County Library and the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). These workshops were facilitated by children’s author, Debbie Thomas and illustrator, Tatyana Feeny along with the following school staff; Ms Sheridan, Miss Walsh and Stephen Hegarty. In total, there were seven workshops, and week by week, fascinating stories were written by the pupils and their families with accompanying illustrations. Most of the stories in this book are fictional although set in places such as Syria and Turkey and really bring us on incredibly imaginative journeys while others are of real life experiences ‘From Syria to Ireland’.