|
|
Missouri city finds Carndonagh
'sister'
09.06.11
THE WHEELS have been
set in motion to twin the town of Carndonagh with a
city in Missouri, USA.
Even though the bid has been quite low key on this
side of the Atlantic, a twinning group in St
Charles, Missouri, has spotted Carndonagh and thinks
the north Inishowen market town would make a perfect
suitor.
More than 400 St. Charles students and some 600
German students have already taken part in school
exchanges thanks to the proactive board of the St.
Charles Sister Cities Program.
After a six year search for an Irish twin, the group
eyed Carndonagh and now hope students from both
places can begin an exchange programme as early as
next year. The St Charles Sister Cities program
wrote to Donegal County Council to get the ball
rolling and followed that up when board member
Marilyn Geery spent a day in Carndonagh at Easter. A
letter of intent was signed and all parties now hope
the official twinning can go ahead some time in the
near future.
Donegal County Council electoral area chairman, Cllr
Mickey Doherty yesterday said he had only recently
learned about the proposal but thought it was a
"positive development". |
"We've recently had the
announcement that funding has been granted for the
Carndonagh Town Park. The twinning proposal with St
Charles, Missouri, is a second piece of good news
for the town," he said.
"Anything that promotes tourism for Inishowen and
brings people together would be welcome."
On the face of it, St Charles and Carndonagh could
not be more different - the former has a population
of around 66,000, the latter about 2,000.
But the city's twinning body likes the fact that the
town has a good community school. |
 |
|
Cllr Mickey Doherty |
President of the Irish
chapter of the St. Charles Sister Cities Program,
Sandi Swift explored Sister Cities International to
ascertain which cities weren’t already matched with
someone else. She now hopes that students from St
Charles will soon be hosted by Carn families and
vice versa.
"That’s how you learn from one another. The big
focus of our sister cities is student exchanges," Ms
Swift told St Charles online news site,
st.charles.patch.com. |
 |
|
The Diamond in
Carndonagh town centre. |
Meanwhile, during Ms
Geery's visit, she was invited into a Carndonagh
home on Good Friday.
"They cooked us codfish with potatoes. The soup they
had, everything was homemade. We sat down to dinner
like it was a big, family affair," she told the
local news site.
Ms Swift is scheduled to present information about
Carndonagh to the St. Charles City Council on
Tuesday. It is expected that a delegation from
Carndonagh will then visit the Missouri city in
September or October to formalize the agreement. |
|
