HAVING encouraged a Swedish school to play gaelic football and having learned much about Sweden in return, it is more than deserved that a Brosna national school be awarded a major EU prize for intercultural learning.

Winning the Cultural Expression Category of the E-Learning Awards at a conference in Rome recently, through the EU Commission's Educational Department, Knockaclarig National School, along with their twinned primary in Sweden, have won €1,000, a laptop, a camera and an interactive whiteboard among other top prizes.

"We are delighted with it," Knockaclarig Principal, Thomas Roche, told The Kerryman. Knockaclarig is twinned with a school in Vindangen outside of Falkoping in Southern Sweden and the cross-cultural sharing culminated in this month's prize.

"The Swedes are a wonderful people to be twinned with and the partnership has proved very successful with Vindangen school," Thomas explained.

Using the latest in digital technology, including internet blogs and camcorders, both schools began posting video footage of their achievements in educational, scientific and cultural activities. In one instance Brosna shared footage of their local rambling house with a skiing trip by the Swedes.

And when the Swedish kids came to Brosna in October last they were taken to a cumann na mbunscoil match where they were bitten by the football bug. Soon after a video appeared on their shared internet blog of the young Scandinavian kids playing gaelic to beat the band and getting into Irish culture. They even picked-up on the West Kerry sound of their own name Vindangen.

Now, the twinning project is in the running for another major EU prize - of which the school expect to hear word early in the New Year.

- DÓNAL NOLAN