Kilkenny student awarded prestigious scholarship

Kilkenny student Ana Ryan was awarded a Naughton Foundation Scholarship worth €24,000 at a ceremony in the Trinity Business School in Dublin on Saturday evening.

Supporting academic and innovative excellence in Irish students, the Naughton Foundation Scholarship Awards are an investment in the future of Ireland's reputation as a country with outstanding graduates promoting the study of engineering, science, and technology at third level.

Ana Ryan, a former student of Kilkenny College, was presented her award by founding patrons of the Naughton Foundation, Dr. Martin Naughton, his wife Carmel, and former Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

The Kilkenny native joins 37 Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and maths.

Ana now looks forward to studying Pharmacy at the Royal College of Surgeons.

The prize winner’s former secondary school, Kilkenny College was awarded a prize of €1,000 towards their school’s science facilities, for their support of their winning student. More than 250 schools have also benefited from this prize to date with some schools receiving it on more than one occasion.  

Since its establishment in 2008, scholarships worth over €6 million have been awarded to over 350 students.

The scheme started in three counties and has continued to expand annually to become a nationwide scheme in 2016. There is one guaranteed scholarship (€24,000) for each participating county, with some counties awarded more than one scholarship and each scholarship is worth €6,000 per annum for each year of a student’s three- or four-year undergraduate degree. 

Speaking about the growth and development of the programme over the past fourteen years, Dr. Martin Naughton commented: "We are very conscious of the pressures on students to finance their full times studies and with the increased costs they face and are therefore increasing our annual Scholarship awards to €6,000 per annum for all of our new and existing Naughton Scholars €24,000 for their four-year degree.

"When we meet these young engineers, researchers, and mathematicians I am very happy knowing that we have invested in Ireland’s wealth creators and leaders of the future."