Limerick apprentice flies home from Down Under for graduation

THE national apprenticeship awards ceremony for Limerick and Clare education and training board (ETB) and Kerry ETB took place at the Radisson Blu Hotel.

Apprentices from a wide range of disciplines were conferred including: aircraft and agricultural mechanics, carpentry and joinery, construction plant fitting, electrical, hairdressing, metal fabrication, motor mechanics, pipefitting, plumbing and stonemasonry.

One of this year’s graduates from Limerick was 25-year-old plumbing apprentice, Dean Territt from Dooradoyle, who travelled home from Australia for the ceremony.

According to Dean, he was inspired to learn a trade by his grandfather who was a fitter.

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Dean said he “loved to watch his granddad working” when he was growing up and “knew then he wanted to find a trade for himself”..

Another graduate was a hairdressing apprentice, Kate Enright from Kilfinny.

Kate said she also knew what she wanted to do from a young age, working for the last 14 years as a hairdresser in the Purple Rain salon in Croom.

Kate said that she was “thrilled when the opportunity to be part of the first cohort of national hairdressing apprenticeship graduates”, who have completed a three year programme.

Chief executive of Iarnród Éireann Jim Meade was the guest speaker. Congratulating the graduating apprentices, he told the newly qualified apprentices that this was “just the beginning of their stories”, and encouraged them to “test themselves”.