County Kildare students receive €24,000 Scholarship Award

Kildare students Aisling Reilly and David Smyth were awarded a Naughton Foundation Scholarship worth €24,000 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 former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, to the lucky students on On Saturday, October 14 last.

Commenting on the growth and development of the programme over the past fourteen years, Dr Martin Naughton said: "We are delighted to have been able to help and contribute in some small way to support undergraduate studies in the STEM fields in Ireland since 2008. 

"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."

He added: "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."

Aisling Reilly, a former student of Kildare Town Community School, has accepted a place studying Engineering at University College Dublin and David Smith, a former student of Meánscoil Iognáid Rís, Naas CBS, has accepted a place studying Financial Mathematics at University of Limerick. 

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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.  
 
Aisling and David join 37 exceptional Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and maths.

The prize winner’s former secondary schools, Kildare Town Community School and Meánscoil Iognáid Rís, Naas CBS were each 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.  

The 2024 application form will be available for completion on the Foundation’s website from February 2024.
 
Full details on The Naughton Foundation Scholarships are available on www.thenaughtonfoundation.ie. 

Martin and Carmel Naughton, Principal Ben Travers, County Kildare scholar David Smyth from Meánscoil Iognáid Rís, Naas CBS and Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the 2023 Naughton Foundation Scholarship awards held at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. Photo by Kieran Harnett.