2022 Scholarship Recipients Announced

Comhghairdeas, a chairde!

We would like to congratulate John Kirkham and Andrea Vandergragt, Learners of the Year with the Gaeltacht and winners of the ICUF scholarship!

We would like to extend our thanks to all applicants for the ‘Learner of the Year’ scholarship this year. We received many applications of the highest order and it was not easy to choose the most suitable candidate.

It gives us great courage that there are such passionate students among the Irish speakers of Canada. We are also very thankful to the Ireland Canada University Foundation (ICUF) for giving us the opportunity to award two scholarships this year.

It is our aim to give this opportunity to whoever has improvement in Irish and, beyond that, to award it to the person who has a connection with the Irish speaking community in Canada and who will get the most of the opportunity.

John Kirkham is the past winner of the scholarship who was unable to make use of it at the time due to COVID. He is a pillar of support for the Irish language in Canada and across North America, working with the Harp of Tara (Comhaltas) group in Kingston, Ontario, and as part of the Gaeltacht working group which organizes immersion weeks for us. There was great improvement on his Irish and the patience of a saint on him waiting to go to Ireland through the pandemic. Congratulations John!

It is an honour to announce that Andrea Vandergragt is the winner of the scholarship this year. Improving greatly in Irish but without yet having fluent Irish, Andrea is an important part of the Irish language movement in Canada, being on the Gaeltacht working groups and holding a Board position and hoping to some day pass the language on to her children. It is with a full heart we are able to congratulate her.