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Cappabue students creating magic once again

June 25th, 2020 8:45 AM

By Kieran O'Mahony

The pupils of Cappabue National School, Kealkil, were commissioned to come up with a new rap as part of Cruinniú na nÓg, which took place last Saturday and the video for the song made its debut on RTÉ 2.

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WITHIN weeks of winning Schoolovision with their climate change rap ‘One Small Change’, the multi-talented pupils of Cappabue National School have  come up with a bespoke visual rap recorded in lockdown.

The pupils were commissioned to write and perform the rap by the Creative Ireland Programme for Cruinniú na nÓg 2020 – which was a national day of free creative activities for children and young people under the age of 18. They were also ambassadors for the event.

We Create Magic’ made its debut on Nationwide on RTÉ 1 and the full video was shown the following day on RTÉ 2 to celebrate Cruinniú na nÓg, which took place last Saturday June 13th.

School principal Norma Healy told The Southern Star that the school was originally asked to be ambassadors for Cruinniú na nÓg 2020.

‘However with the Covid-19 pandemic that didn’t transpire but they asked us would we consider doing a song for that day with the theme of creativity,’ said Norma.‘So we were commissioned to do it and have spent the past three weeks planning, recording and getting ideas from the children as to how they can be creative.’

Once again, they enlisted the help of Garry McCarthy of GMC Beats and their talented past pupil Elaine Lucey and her colleague Daniel Fleming from Aperture Media to make the magic happen.

‘What was great with this project is that it was a collaborative effort as the parents were also involved and they had to record their own children reciting the lines for their rap and the activities they were doing. Elaine, who was the artistic director for the project gave them even online tutorials about getting the best from filming on their mobile phones.’

Olive Creed – the other teacher in the two-teacher school near Kealkil – said the parents and the children were incredible for the work they put in.‘They just rose to the occasion and they were amazing and the creativity shown by the pupils was inspiring,’ said Olive.

The pupils got to return to their schoolyard for the recording of the song whereby families were given time slots and the pupils were recorded separately. All the parents had a government letter to allow them travel beyond the 5k limit too.

‘Nobody had access to the school building itself and everything was sanitised including the gates and it’s become part of the norm now for the pupils,’ added Olive.

Garry’s partner, Dzana Bukvic also helped the pupils with the dancing and acting aspect for the video.

‘The whole experience was joyful and that really comes across in the song and video. We want to especially thank Sheila Deegan from the Department of Culture, Heritage and The Gaeltacht for funding it and giving us the opportunity to do it,’ said Norma.

Earlier this year, the students climate change rap, ‘One Small Change’ went viral and it looks like they could be in with another success.

‘We Create Magic’ is  on release on all platforms.To see the video see ‘Cappabue National School’ on Facebook.

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