Head of Belgrove Junior Boys\u2019 School in Clontarf fears a pupil may be knocked down\n<\/p>\n
Fiona Sheridan, the head of Belgrove Junior Boys\u2019 School in Clontarf, Dublin, said the street outside the school, Seafield Road West, is \u201cbedlam\u201d during pick-up and drop-off times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get it, parents have to drop their children off, most people are working back in the office \u2013 that\u2019s fine, and I get that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the impatience and the lack of awareness of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belgrove Junior Boys is one of four schools on the road, with around 1,000 pupils moving about the area every morning and afternoon.<\/p>\n
Ms Sheridan said she spends parts of every day policing the road, along with school wardens, trying to prevent accidents and dangerous behaviour.<\/p>\n
Every day, she sees illegal parking in the school\u2019s disabled parking bays, cars stopping in areas not designated for set-down, risky U-turns and vehicles driving on the footpath.<\/p>\n
I actually technically shouldn\u2019t be out on the road like a mad woman. That\u2019s not my role, that\u2019s not my remit<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the U-turns that drive me insane,\u201d Ms Sheridan said. \u201cIt\u2019s the reversing and not looking behind them, and as well as that a lot of people are letting their children out on the road, so they\u2019re not even pulling up, they\u2019re just stopping in traffic and the child gets out the back door.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a few near misses outside the school. It\u2019s actually like The Hunger Games out there. I\u2019ve driven through it myself, and you need to have eyes in the back of your head.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Principal Fiona Sheridan outside Belgrove Junior Boys\u2019 School in Clontarf, Dublin. Photo: Frank McGrath<\/p>\n
News in 90 seconds – Friday, April 10 <\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, the issue is that so many people are driving these massive Land Rovers that they don\u2019t need to drive when you\u2019re in a city, and they\u2019re taking up most of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Sheridan\u2019s school caters for boys from junior infants to second-class age, meaning her pupils can be as young as four.<\/p>\n
Most drivers are understanding, she said, but there is a significant minority who believe \u201cthe rules don\u2019t apply to them\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually technically shouldn\u2019t be out on the road like a mad woman. That\u2019s not my role, that\u2019s not my remit. That\u2019s a public road,\u201d Ms Sheridan said. \u201cBut God forbid a child is knocked down. It\u2019s only a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/f01e1d09-e099-45af-8118-e193c9fc965b.jpg\")
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A ‘school zone’ sign on a street in Dublin. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n
On top of the aggression of some drivers, parents without disabled children park in the disabled bays, blocking some pupils from accessing the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I get when I go out is, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m only dropping off, I\u2019m going\u2019,\u201d Ms Sheridan said.<\/p>\n
The school has been forced to call garda\u00ed, who stationed themselves along the road for a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fine for about a week or two afterwards, and then it was back again,\u201d Ms Sheridan said.<\/p>\n
Dublin City Council (DCC) re-lined the road recently, and garda\u00ed gave the school traffic cones to keep cars in line, but these measures have been largely ignored by drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week, a woman dropped her child off, drove around the cones, up on to the footpath right outside my school, with young children there, and drove off,\u201d Ms Sheridan said.<\/p>\n
She added that the street should be included in the Safe Routes to School programme, which is funded by the National Transport Authority (NTA) in co-ordination with the local authority.<\/p>\n
The scheme introduces school zones that aim to improve safety for students who walk and cycle. This involves erecting bollards that protect footpaths from vehicles.<\/p>\n
Despite Belgrove Junior Boys meeting with the council about the issue in 2022, nothing has happened.<\/p>\n
Measures that can help reduce the number of students being driven include \u2018park and strides\u2019, \u2018walking buses\u2019 and \u2018cycling buses\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told we\u2019re on the list and they just kind of stalled it,\u201d Ms Sheridan said.<\/p>\n
When contacted by the Irish Independent, DCC said the NTA was working through rounds three and four of the programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is currently no additional capacity to deal with schools outside this programme,\u201d a council spokesperson said. \u201cWe have a waiting list and several of the local schools are on it. We hope to be able to engage with other schools in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
School zones were \u201conly one of many solutions\u201d to traffic challenges facing schools, the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, there is a need to reduce the number of cars causing congestion at the school gate, which creates the unsafe environment for children.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther measures that can help to reduce the number of students being driven to school include \u2018park and strides\u2019, \u2018walking buses\u2019 and \u2018cycling buses\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage school communities to work with the parents and children in developing and trying out these solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the council\u2019s sustainable mobility team would be happy to support the school with getting these initiatives started.<\/p>\n
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head of Belgrove Junior Boys\u2019 School in Clontarf fears a pupil may be knocked down Fiona Sheridan, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,81446,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-393629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-liam-coates","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}