Local Faces: Sharon Murray

StartBright is a network of not-for-profit Early Learning Centres in South West Dublin, writes Ken Doyle.

From their website, their mission is “For every child and their family in South West Dublin, to have access to excellent early years education as a right and a key to realising their full potential.”

They do wonderful work with what they call ‘wobblers to toddlers’ and we’re delighted to feature the Manager of the Deansrath, Clondalkin centre Sharon Murray as our Face of the Community this week.

Sharon is a Saggart girl and has lived there just about all of her life. “I ended up buying a house a few minutes away from my parents so I didn’t fly too far from the nest!”

As far as education goes, Sharon went to St Mary’s National School and then to St Mark’s Community College for secondary.

After St Mark’s, with a shiny Leaving Cert under her arm, she studied at Progressive College (now City College Dublin) emerging with an advanced certificate in Early Childhood Education.

“I’ve always been really passionate about the subject and about the importance of giving children the best possible start in education. I was determined to make it my career and as soon as I graduated, I got stuck straight in.”

And so, in 2004, Sharon’s love affair with Deansrath began in earnest.

“In that year, I came to work in Deansrath as Project Leader in ECH in room 23 of St Ronan’s Primary School. I worked with the wonderful Ann Hickey who was fully supportive of the project.”

“We started off small, I had eight children in the morning and one in the afternoon but it wouldn’t stay that way for long.”

Indeed it wouldn’t. By 2007 they had got enough funding to move into a Portakabin on the school grounds, such was the popularity of the programme and the demand for places.

“We’d really got too big and we had started to acquire some fabulous staff members who were a huge help in the early years, namely Tina Courtney, Angela Browne and the now retired Bernie Gilroy.”

Kozy Kids continued on gathering interest and good reviews but soon they became so big that they had to amalgamate with similar organis-ations and in 2019 The company StartBright was formed.

It now has seven Centres in the South West Dublin area and Sharon is the manager and Chief bottle-washer of both the Deansrath and St Ronan’s branch.

“I have to say, I’ve absolutely loved my time here in Deansrath. It’s been a wonderful experience getting to know the local people and it really feels like home.

‘We try to go above and beyond for the people of the area in the sense that sometimes we’ll be able to point people in the right direction for any issues they may be suffering from.

‘When I walk around the place I feel like I’m bumping into a friend everywhere I go.”

It bears repeating here that StartBright is a not-for-profit organisation and they have to fight hard for any funding they get.

Luckily they have formidable women like Quality Mentor Mary Rose Pluck and StartBright’s CEO Elaine McQuillan leading the way on that front.

“Mary Rose and Elaine applied for, and received funding from the Community Recognition Fund to build a new Community Garden/play area for the kids.

‘We listened to the kids and they wanted hills and tunnels and climbing ropes, so we put those in. We also now have a Sensory Room and we plan to put another one in before long.”

“The whole project was achieved with massive help from the residents of Deansrath. People young and old came to give us a dig out and we’re immensely grateful to all of them.”

StartBright is extremely highly rated and as Sharon tells me, their ambition is not limited to South West Dublin.

“We would love to see what we call ‘The StartBright Way’ further afield.

‘We believe passionately in our approach to early years education and I see no reason why in the coming years, we couldn’t roll the programme out nationwide. Professionally though, my own heart belongs to Deansrath.”

At home, Sharon has her husband Fergus, another Saggart man whom she’s pretty much known her whole life.

They married in 1988 and have been together for 44 years altogether.

Sharon is very proud to tell me about her now grown-up children Glen, Sinéad and Darren. She gets a bit more animated when she tells me about her beautiful granddaughters Kyra, 10, and eight- month-old Bella.

With the family reared and just the grandchildren to spoil, Sharon and Fergus got the travel bug, and take every opportunity to get away with similar-minded people.

They’re also big fans of St Mary’s GAA in Saggart and follow the Dubs whenever possible.

So, in the hands of great people like Sharon, the future of early years education looks very good and we wish her and StartBright all the best for the future.

For more information on StartBright see their website at startbright.