Athy Sing and Sign Club seek new home
Athy Sing and Sign need a new home Photo: Aisling Hyland
ATHY Sing and Sign Club is seeking a new building for its’ classes, with the sign language group currently having to operate from a local primary school.
Maggie Owens – chairperson of Athy Sing and Sign Club as well as a teacher and an education officer for the NCCA (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment) - has been in talks with Kildare County Council over a new building for her club, and she described the necessity of the facility whilst speaking to the
“What I really would love to see, and I have been in talks with Kildare County Council about this, is, we would love to have our own building. At the moment, we use the Gaelscoil (in Athy) and we go down there every Thursday evening, and we're very grateful, you know, like that we have somewhere to have the classes, but like the chairs are really tiny. We have adults sitting down in little children's chairs learning ISL (Irish Sign Language)."
Maggie further detailed how her home garden shed is full of things belonging to the club. The council has said they will help Athy Sign and Sign, with the chairperson currently on the hunt for a suitable building. She is grateful to the Gaelscoil for allowing them to use the classroom in the school and added that they would be happy to share a new facility with other community groups.
The club has grown to the extent that they have five different class groups every week, including an adult class, a class for teenagers and one for younger children, with around 70-80 members altogether.
Maggie gives a lot of credit for this growth to committee members Linda Dobbyn, Breda Moore Flynn and Mary Byrne who make up “a really hard-working committee”.
The chairperson noted the difference the group makes in society, citing a situation where a past member was working in a hospital and was able to help a deaf patient communicate with doctors, with there being no qualified ISL interpreter there.
She detailed how the teenagers in the club teach the younger children, which helps them in building leadership skills.
Maggie also praised the council for their funding.
“We are very, very grateful for Kildare County Council. It's because of them and their support really that we're able to organise all of the events that we have organised and we're so grateful, you know, and to our local councillors because they organised funding first with the local property tax.
"We're able to fund for our members to do QQI level 3, level 4 and level 5 in ISL with the Irish Deaf Society. We get the community grants from Kildare County Council, the festival grants.”
The benefits of having suitable community space has been seen in Athy already this year with the collaboration between Athy Sing and Sign and Athy’s resident artist for 2026 Ali Clarke at the Art House in the town on the “Signs of Spring” exhibition.
In collaboration with artist, Maggie was able to invite ISL linguists and the deaf community from around the county to initiate a new conversation around a new ISL sign for Kildare, with there currently being confusion due to Kildare having the same sign as Kilkenny.
Maggie described that conversation at the art house as “really interesting” with the only downside being that a representative from Kilkenny couldn’t make it.
She plans on contacting the Irish Deaf Society in the hopes of organising a bigger conversation up in Deaf Village Ireland in Cabra, Dublin.
She hopes that these conversations will develop into something to present at the annual ISLA festival on 27 September.
The festival was a great success last year and will coincide with World Deaf Day this year.
