IT was billed as Ireland's first inter denominational school, but for the four year olds starting at Gaelscoil Chill Mhantain in Wicklow town, religion was definitely not the priority.
There were, after all, far more important things to attend to in their new school - housed in a converted funeral home - such as banana sandwiches, games of tag in the yard and the final bell to let them go home.
True, tears were shed. But overall this was a mature ensemble, unfazed by their new surroundings and the challenge of speaking what was for many of them a strange language.
For Mr Tom Munnelly, chairman of the founding committee, it was a dream quickly realised. It was only last January that local parents first mooted the establishment of an all Irish school, and now it was a reality for both Catholic and Protestant children.
"There was great interest in providing an all Irish education, but when we looked around the founding committee, we realised that 80 per cent were Catholic and 20 per cent Protestant. It would have been extraordinarily unfair to have a school under the patronage of one faith or the other, so we tried to accommodate the two," he said.
As a result, the children attending Gaelscoil Chill Mhantain will receive religious instruction in the same classroom. They will separate only for the sacraments. In addition, the children will celebrate several festivals during the year: first communion (Catholic); harvest (Protestant); and Christmas and Easter, which are common to both.
"When we looked at the religious education programme of the Catholic bishop, we found that substantial parts were used in Protestant schools as well. It really wasn't that difficult to put together a package that suits all," Mr Munnelly, an industrial engineer with An Post, said.
However, the organisers' claims to be the first inter denominational school since the last century are disputed. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the school will be treated the same as any multi denominational or other school with Catholic pupils.
"There are other schools in the diocese which are not under the patronage of the archbishop that fulfil his requirements in preparing children for the sacraments, in some cases inside the class room and sometimes outside it," a spokesman for the Archbishop of Dublin, whose rem it includes Wicklow town, said.
An all Irish school, Scoil Caoimhin, established by the Department of Education in its own grounds in Marlborough Street over 40 years ago, is run on interdenominational lines, the spokesman added.
Whatever about the record books, the school in Wicklow is certainly testimony to the increasing variety of Irish society. "We have Catholics and Protestants, rich and poor, black and white, English and Irish, parents with no Irish and fluent gaelgeoirs involved," Mr Munnelly said.
