Our Summer Reading Challenge returns to Cluny. We are delighted to share the Summer Reading Challenge 2023 with you. Like last year, our summer challenge is a reading prompt list. This prompt list features a variety of reading challenges. Participants are tasked with reading something that meets the criteria for each prompt. Our prompts this year are: Read a book set in space. Try an audiobook. Read a retelling or reimagining of a classic, myth or popular story. Read a book inspired by true events. Read a book with multiple narrators or points of view (POVs). Read a book featuring magical creatures. Read a book recommended to you by someone else. By the end, all participants should have a unique reading list which documents their reading journey. Students, staff and parents/guardians are invited to take […]
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Book Drive
Book Drive – 03 March 2023 Recently, we collected book donations for a book drive event in March. Students, staff, parents and guardians of students and members of the wider Cluny community kindly donated second hand books to us for this event. Thank you to everyone who donated to us. Books donated included children’s, middle grade, young adult, adult fiction and non-fiction. We had a fantastic array of all kinds of titles available for purchase. Our Green Schools were very busy pricing and organising the stall for the day. We were delighted to help them throughout this initiative. This book sale will coincided with the sixth year coffee morning. All money raised was donated to St. Joseph’s Care Center in Shankill, this year’s sixth year charity. During the sale, parents, guardians, students and staff had […]
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Harry Potter Week 2023
Our annual week of magic returned to Cluny in March this year! Marking the third annual week of Harry Potter Week here at Cluny Library, we hope you all enjoyed the themed weeks activities.
What took place at Cluny Library for Harry Potter Week?
As in previous years, decorations and themed displays could be found all over the library. The raffles and flow chart quizzes returned for students to take part in. The which Hogwarts House do you belong in and the discover your Patronus flow chart remained ever popular. This year, the prizes included 3D printed Harry Potter wands, pens and key rings.
Olivander’s Wand Shop also returned with new wands from different witches and wizards appearing. Students were tasked with identifying who owned which wand.
The Flying Keys also made their return, hiding amongst the library books, shelves and plants. Students had to find all 8 hidden keys in the library. Well done to our first year students and visiting members from The Harold who were the only ones to find all of them!
Quidditch also returned to Cluny as lucky P.E. classes were given the chance to try the popular wizard sport!
New to the week’s activities were Potions Class and Care of Magical Creatures Class. In potions class, a selection of potions needed to be made, students had to select which ingredients made which potion. Meanwhile in Care of Magical Creatures, students had to identify the make-up of magical creatures such as centaurs, pegasus and hyppogriffs.
Primary Schools visit
We were delighted to welcome students fro
m Johnstown and The Harold to Cluny library to take part in a morning of fund activities as part of Harry Potter Week. A Harry Potter quiz with snacks was first on our agendas! The quiz was followed by board games in the library including giant snakes and ladders, giant chess, connect four, draughts and lots more. Well done to our TY students who were their buddies throughout their time here. We hope they all enjoyed their time here at Cluny!
We hope you all enjoyed Harry Potter Week and are excited for its return!!
World Book Day 2023
On Thursday, 02 March, we celebrated World Book Day here at Cluny. Staff and students jumped in to take part in our bookish themed activities. What is World Book Day? World Book Day is an annual celebration of literature and literary culture across the UK and Ireland. World Book Day was first celebrated in the UK and Ireland in 1997 but it was created and recognised by UNESCO as a celebration of reading in April 1995. Since it’s founding, it is now celebrated in over 100 countries. We are delighted to join in the fun and promote the joy of reading with our school community here in the library. As part of the celebrations, we received book tokens for all of our students. These tokens were digital this year and allowed students to exchange […]
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House Reading Challenge
The House Reading Challenge returns! With the success of our first House Reading Challenge last year, we are delighted to run this event again in conjunction with our House System here at Cluny. What is the House Reading Pledge? Each House will take part in a reading challenge to read the most pages. Over the course of this term, each House will create a team consisting of the House Captains, house members and members of staff. The maximum size of these teams is 23 members. While not a requirement to have 23 team mates, the more that are on the team, the better! These teams will read as much as they can and record the total number of pages they have read over this time period. There will be a team member for every year […]
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Inspiring Women from Irish History Week
From the 28 of November until the 02 of December, we held a themed week on inspiring women from Irish history here at Cluny library.
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Winter Readathon
Winter Readathon 2022 Our Winter Readathon returns this year! Last year we had lots of students and staff take part in our reading challenge and we are delighted to run it again this year. All students and staff are invited to take part in what is sure to be a fun initiative! What is a Readathon? During a readathon, participants are invited to read as much as they can during a set period of time. For this readathon, there is no prescribed reading list so participants can choose whatever they’d like to read. How to take part All students interested in taking part should let Ms. Curtin know. All participants are added to a shared document where they can highlight the books that they have read. This readathon takes place between the 21st of November […]
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Summer Reading Challenge 2022
What is the Cluny Summer Reading Challenge 2022? Starting this month, we are delighted to announce our next reading initiative. Over the summer, we would like to challenge you to a reading challenge. For this, you must read a book that meets one of each criteria listed below. You then record the name of the book and author you read, which prompt it meets and if you like, a star rating out of five for how much you enjoyed it. Reading challenges like these can be a great way to try and read books you normally wouldn’t. For example, if you only read science fiction, trying to read a spy novel or historical fiction piece may come as a change of pace but also a chance to come across a new genre you might love! […]
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World Book Day
World Book Day – 03 March 2022 World Book Day took place on the 03 March 2022. We celebrated the 25th anniversary of World Book Day this year at Cluny Library. All students were given their €1.50 book tokens to spend on their favorite books or to avail of some of the special free titles for this years annual event. We were visited by the Cluny Book Fairy who hid some books around the school. Students were tasked with finding these books. Whoever found them was allowed to keep them! Well done to all who took part in the book hunt and happy reading! A themed reading display was put together with a selection of recommended titles for all reading levels and interests. This display featured beloved stories including One by Sarah Crossan, The Boy […]
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Harry Potter Week 2022
A week of mischief, magic and more! We have come to the end of our second annual Harry Potter week here at Cluny library. We were delighted to bring back our displays of 3D printed wands at Olivander’s Wand shop, finding all 12 of the flying keys for the Philosopher Stone and lots more! Students loved seeing the 3D printed wands and trying to name the witch or wizard they belonged to. The TY library committee were busy making decorations for the week, from Hogwart’s house themed ties to making a Marauder’s Map, we had lots of wonderful decorations around the library. The House sigils made by last years committee also decorated our walls. Our suggested reads for Harry Potter fans as well as a Harry Potter book display were also ready for all who […]
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St. Brigid’s Day Creative Competition
St. Brigid’s Day Creative Competition 2022 To celebrate St. Brigid’s Day on the first of February, we are inviting students to create something on the theme of St. Brigid and/or spring. You can do a piece of creative writing, make or craft something or create a piece of artwork based on the prompt! If you make, draw or craft something, drop these into Ms. Curtin in the library. You can email your completed creative writing pieces to library@clunykilliney.ie. All entries will be displayed in the library throughout February. The deadline for entries was the 31st of January. And the winner is….! Well done to our winner Clodagh in fifth year for her excellent watercolour painting! Thank you for entering.
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House Reading Challenge 2022
The House Reading Challenge 2022 Congratulations to St. Lucia who won the House Reading Challenge 2022! Together, they read over 23,000 pages during the challenge time. Well done to all teams who took part. As a school we read 233 books and over 80,000 pages! Wow! We hope you are all looking forward to our next reading challenge. To find out more about what this challenge was, read the below! What is the House Reading Pledge? Each House will take part in a reading challenge to read the most pages. Over the course of this term, each House will create a team consisting of the House Captains, house members and members of staff. These teams will read as much as they can and record the total number of pages they have read over this time […]
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Christmas Reading Challenge
From the 6th of December until the 10th of January 2022, we will be holding a Christmas readathon! What is a Readathon? Do you know what a readathon is? A readathon is where you read as much as you can over the course of a specified time. You can choose whatever books you would like to read – including non-fiction! You record the books you’ve read and then add them to a record where all other participants can see what you read over the time period. Whoever reads the most from each group will win a prize! All are welcome to take part. We have lots of new books in the library including The Henna Wars, Heartland, The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds, Midnight Sun and lots more. You can borrow these from the library […]
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History of Animation Week
Last week in the library we ran a themed week around the history of animation.
Students learned about the origins of animation, from the very first animated piece, early animation techniques and the origins of some of today’s most well known animation houses. Exploring the analogue methods of animation from the use of mirrors and stop-motion, we travelled through history to the foundations of technicolour, combining music and movement and eventually to the movement to computer generated images (CGI).
Our TY Library Committee were busy making posters on a selection of famous animated pieces including Song of the Sea and Cinderella. These posters were displayed around the library for the week and included facts about how each movie was made, some fun facts about it and how it was received in the box office.
Events for the weeks
Along with our display boards, we had lots of fun events and activities for students.
We had a visit from Boulder Media to our TY students to talk about working in animation. Students were shown the phases of animation from early concept art, background creation, rigging, colour and final animation pieces. Students thoroughly enjoyed this experience and asked lots of great questions. A huge thank you to Boulder Media for coming in to talk to us.
Our TY students, Neila and Sarah ran an animation workshop for first year students. Using an app called ‘Flipaclip’, Neila and Sarah showed the first years how to make a bouncing ball animation. Students each created unique drawings called frames which when combined and played in video showed a bouncing ball. The first years really enjoyed this time. Thank you to Neila and Sarah for running this workshop!
Over the week, we also ran Kahoot quizzes for class groups on the history of animation and had the opportunity to watch some classic examples of animated masterpieces like Nightmare before Christmas and Spirited Away.
Here is a gallery for the week of events we had here!
Animation workshop ran by TY students for first years. 
Animation week display with Spirited Away poster made by Neila. 
TY students visit to the library. 
Nightmare before Christmas poster made by Shauna. 
Song of the Sea poster made by Tara. 
Finding Nemo poster made by Mimi. 
Cinderella poster made by Alice.
Creative Writing Competition
Fighting Words Creative Writing Supplement in the Irish Times The annual Fighting Words creative writing supplement for the Irish Times is now accepting submissions. Each year, teenagers are invited to submit their creative writing pieces for a chance to be published. Fighting Words are looking for poems (max. 2 poems per person), prose and creative writing pieces (max. 1500 words) for their supplement. The deadline for entries is 17:00 on Wednesday 22nd of December. How to Enter All pieces must by typed up and emailed to Fighting Words for consideration. All entries should be emailed to fiction@fightingwords.ie. As part of your submission you should also include the following information: Your name Your age Your school Your parents/guardians name, phone number and email address The word count of your submission For more information For more information […]
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