Kilkenny student awarded prestigious €20,000 scholarship

On Saturday, October 15, County Kilkenny Student, Martin Fitzgerald, was awarded a Naughton Foundation Scholarship worth €20,000 at a ceremony in the Trinity Business School 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. Simon Harris, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to award winning students with their accolades and cheques.

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.

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The County Kilkenny winner, Martin Fitzgerald, a former student of CBS, has accepted a place studying engineering at University College Dublin.

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 (€20,000) for each participating county, with some counties awarded more than one scholarship and each scholarship is worth €5,000 per annum for each year of a student’s three or four-year undergraduate degree.

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Martin joins 37 exceptional Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and maths. Martin’s former secondary school, CBS was awarded a prize of €1000 towards the school’s science facilities, for their support of these students. More than 250 schools have also benefited from this prize to date with some schools receiving it on more than one occasion.

Speaking about the growth and development of the programme over the past fourteen years, Dr Martin Naughton said: “We started supporting students in their science and engineering studies in Louth, Meath, and Monaghan in 2008 to give back to our local area.

"We never imagined what a wonderful community of connected young people the Naughton Scholarship programme would become.  Our alumni are an incredible group working in the best universities, research institutes and businesses across the world.

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"Each year we hear back from them on the value of this network to them and the connections it has given them across disciplines and Ireland. They are a wonderful group of young people that are all giving back to society in their own way that we are very proud to be connected with.”