Mullingar school's road safety video goes viral

A road safety video made by Coláiste Mhuire staff and students has gone viral, and was featured on NewsTalk, Virgin Media, and RTÉ due to its powerful message.

It follows two students from the school who are exchanging texts, and there is a serious road accident.

The video was shot over a couple of days with the help of local gardaí, who assisted with road closures and gained permission from HQ to feature in the video as actors.

Teacher Kieran Kelly had set up a road safety module in the school for TY students several years ago, and one student, Ethan Coll, who has an interest in media, put forward the road safety video idea.

Filmmaker and photographer Noel McIntyre was brought in to “bring the idea to life” and said he knew early on that it would be “very powerful”.

“I set out a simple storyboard, and we discussed that and set out the scenes and general message we wanted to get across.

“We wanted to show how an ordinary day in the life of someone can be turned upside down in a moment, for any family, for anyone.”

Mr McIntyre said the final scene, in which two gardaí knock at a door with bad news, shared a powerful message.

“Unfortunately, far too many households have experienced that,” he said. “On the other side, by creating something like this, we’ve told a story that can help prevent that knock, and I’m proud of that.”

Mr Kelly praised the staff and students for their ambition in seeing the project through. “A couple of years ago, I gave a talk in the school and shared a great saying: ‘There are no rules in life,,” he said.

“Who says you can’t make a film? Who says you can’t do anything? My father used to say to me when I was 13 or 14 that if I wanted to fly a 747 jumbo jet, which was a big thing in my day, there was nothing stopping me. Or if I wanted to be an astronaut, nobody was stopping me.

“Two years later, we’ve created this together, and it’s amazing to see where it went.”

Speaking to Lunchtime Live on NewsTalk last week, student Ethan Coll said he enjoyed the process of making the video.

“We closed down the roads, and I felt like I was on a movie set or something,” he said. “We had the lorry, and we had to close the road for that scene; it was unreal going through the process of making the ad and seeing it all come together.

“I had ideas of what it would look like in my head, but I never thought it’d be that good – I was so happy with it in the end.”

He also noted the importance of the message. “Mobile phones are probably our biggest worry, definitely my dad’s biggest worry,” said Mr Coll.

“When I’m starting to drive now, I notice everyone’s texting, on Snapchat, on TikTok, and distracted by it.

“I wanted to put forward the idea of the pedestrian and the driver, to show the dangers for both sides and how big a distraction the phone is in the car.”

M Kelly explained how his interest in road safety began. “I had a personal loss when I was 19,” he told NewsTalk.

“A friend of mine passed away in a road collision, and as I say to the students, I don’t remember what I had for my lunch yesterday, but I remember everything about that time 16, 17 years ago, vividly and in detail.”It has that massive impact, and when you think back, it’s still raw and still sore.”That’s the driving force for me behind it, and that’s what flicks my switch when I’m doing road safety with the boys.”

Mr Kelly said the aim of his road safety campaigning is to try to “prevent others from being in that scenario”.

“Everybody thinks road accidents happen elsewhere,” he said. “If you’re from Galway, you think they have road accidents in Donegal, and they have them in Kerry – they can come to your door just as easily, and when they do, they hit home and hit hard.

“What we’re trying to do is bring those statistics down and stop people from having those experiences.”