On Saturday, September 29th, Old Clongownian, Matthew Martin was awarded a Naughton Foundation scholarship worth €20,000 at a ceremony in Trinity College Biomedical Science Institute in Dublin. The award was presented by founding patrons of The Naughton Foundation, Dr. Martin Naughton and his wife Carmel who were joined by Mr. Richard Bruton TD, Minister for Education and Skills.
Supporting academic and innovative excellence in Irish students, this Scholarship Award is an investment in the future of Ireland’s reputation as a country with outstanding graduates. Part of the Rhetoric 2018 graduating class, Matthew has accepted a place at Trinity College Dublin studying Engineering and he joins 36 exceptional Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science and technology.
Since its establishment in 2008 scholarships worth over €4million have been awarded to more than 200 students nationwide. There is one guaranteed Scholarship (€20,000) for each participating county, with the exception of Cork and Galway where there are two scholarships awarded and four for Dublin. Five additional Scholarships are also to be awarded. Each Scholarship is worth €5,000 per annum for each year of a student’s three or four year undergraduate degree. Speaking about the growth of the programme over the past eleven years, the Naughton’s commented:
“Eleven years ago we envisaged a small scholarship program to help support local students studying the STEM subjects. We never imagined this group of over 200 students and alumni nationwide who are connected across the universities and STEM disciplines and we couldn’t be more proud of the unique community they are developing” – Dr Martin and Carmel Naughton
As a result of Matthew’s success Clongowes was also presented with a prize of €1,000 on the day towards the school’s science facilities, for their support of these students. More than 160 schools have benefited from this prize to date with some schools receiving it on more than one occasion.
Matthew is pictured above with Fr Laurence Murphy sj (OC’56), Mrs Carmel Naughton, MrRichard Bruton TD, Minister for Education and Skills (OC’70) and Dr Martin Naughton
