Ireland's youngest museum curator was special guest at Carrick-on-Suir school awards

The head curator of the Waterford Treasures group of museums returned to her old school - Scoil Mhuire in Carrick-on-Suir - to present prizes and address its annual student awards ceremony.

Clíona Purcell, who completed her Leaving Cert at Greenhill school in 2013, was the special guest at the awards ceremony on Friday, May 15 where awards were presented for academic excellence and achievements in sports, music and drama, class spirit, community and charity work.

Katelyn Phelan received the Student of the Year award while Hazel O'Shea was presented with the school’s CEIST award.

Twenty-one students were presented with silver Gaisce awards at the ceremony.

Special Excellence through Effort awards were presented to Carla O'Connor for her fundraising for Aoibheann's Pink Tie charity and Ashley Flynn for the assistance she gave at the school's autism classroom.

Ms Purcell, meanwhile spoke at the awards ceremony about her work at the group of six Waterford Treasure museums where she is responsible for the care and display of their historical artefacts and the museum's buildings.

The Carrick-on-Suir woman became the youngest ever head curator of a designated Irish museum when she was appointed to the role of the Waterford city collection of museums in 2024 at the age of 29.

She said it was a huge privilege to work in this role. She spoke of how her love for history was first sparked from watching the film, The Mummy, at the tender age of three and that she knew she wanted to become a museum curator at the age of eight.

She highlighted that picking a third-level course you later find is not for you isn't the end of the world. She recounted how she started out studying education and science at the University of Limerick but switched to history as it was her passion.

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