It all started when…

The club was founded in 2005 by Aiden Mchugh. Aiden is a PAL President Award Leader and he encouraged young teenagers to learn Irish Sign Language as part of their personal skill for the Gaisce awards. In 2007 Maggie Owens became their new ISL teacher and together they formed the Athy Sing & Sign Club where young people and teenagers of Athy and surrounding areas learn ISL in a fun and informal way. To date hundreds of teenagers have joined, learned and are now competent in I.S.L.

Athy Sing & Sign has become very popular and our members had the honour of performing on television, musicals on stage and performing at many significant events. Please check our achievements page to see some of our club highlights.

We now encourage our older students to complete the QQi Level 3 and QQi Level 4 in ISL with the Irish Deaf Society. We are honoured to have a past student Aoife Harrington who has chosen ISL Interpreting as her career and she has just recently studied for four years and is now qualified as an ISL Interpreter from Centre of Deaf Studies in Trinity College.

We have a wonderful committee who put their heart and soul into organising our brilliant events and our annual ISL Festival. Chairperson Maggie Owens, Committee members Majella Harris, Linda Dobbyn, Breda Moore Flynn and Mary Byrne.

We are very proud of our annual ISL Booklet which is beautifully illustrated by Brendan O Rourke. Brendan is a caricature artist from Athy town and every year in our centre page he would draw a charming picture of a key building in town such as the White Castle and Crom A Boo bridge, Athy Library, Athy Heritage and Shackleton Museum, and Athy Train Station. We also have theme pages such as Space, Sports, Counties etc.. Please check our resource page to download your own copy.

Our Club Mission

The mission of Athy Sing & Sign club is to provide a supportive and positive learning environment in which all individual members has the opportunity to develop their Irish Sign Language (ISL) skills, to learn about Deaf Culture and the Deaf Community. The members will also get an opportunity to develop their leadership skills in the youth friendly environment, which in turn leads to self-confidence and personal growth.