Kildare pupils to get longer Halloween holidays due to presidential election

Primary school children are set to get longer mid-term holidays at Halloween due to the Presidential election.

Schools usually close for one week around Halloween.

However because many school buildings will be used for the Presidential Election no Friday, October 26, students will have no classes that day.

Pupils are also expected to be off the following week and return on Monday, November 5.

A total of 11 candidates are currently seeking nominations to run but Sallins-born Dragon's Den star Gavan Duffy is so far the only person to receive a nomination from a local authority - from Meath Co Council.

Duffy, who made a presentation to Kildare Co Council last week, revealed his mother ran the well-known 'Gem' shop in Poplar Square in Naas.

He told councillors in Aras Chill Dara: "It is great to be in the county of my birth. I was born in 1960 in Sallins where I attended the National School. My Dad, Ned, was a pig farmer.

"My mother, Anne Duffy nee Cooke, was a business woman, along with her brother, George, they had a successful business on Poplar Square in Naas, called ‘The Gem’.

"Everyone travelling to Dublin from the South in the ‘60s and ‘70s - for a shopping spree or the Spring Show or an All-Ireland final - stopped to eat at the ‘The Gem’.

"We opened another ‘Gem’ in Drogheda and moved there as a family but my connection with Kildare remained, because I went to the Dominican College in Newbridge."

Duffy went on : "I did not go to third level college. I went straight into work and was fortunate to achieve a good level of success in my business life."