Whiskey and education don’t usually go together.
But the spirit is at the heart of the story of one of Northern Ireland’s oldest special schools.
The Mitchell House School in Belfast – which has just celebrated its 60th birthday – was founded thanks to a gift from distillers.
Headmistress Miriam Donnan researched this story for a special exhibition to celebrate the school’s special date.
“The old house, Marmont House, belonged to the Mitchell whiskey family,” she told BBC News NI.
“It was donated by the Mitchell whiskey family to children with physical disabilities in November 1961 when the school was first established.
“We have the textbook back from the first day the school opened.”
“So we started with eight students in the school and have now grown to over 100 students here on site catering to children with physical disabilities, learning needs and related sensory needs.”
The school has been teaching students with conditions such as cerebral palsy and spina bifida for six decades.
Princess Diana visited in 1985.
Ms Donnan began teaching at Mitchell House in 2007 and became Headmaster in 2017.
The school educates students from the ages of three to 19, but like all special schools, teaching is only part of their job.
“We’ve seen an increase in the medical complexity of children over the past 10 years,” Ms Donnan said.
“Thanks to medical science, some children are living much longer than they were years ago, which is great, and we are then able to support their medical needs as well as their physical needs.”
Ms Donnan added: “Our main conditions that we would have include cerebral palsy, spina bifida and then a whole host of other rare conditions.
“So we’ve got kids in wheelchairs, kids with mobility issues, we’ve had kids in the past who maybe had limb amputations because of meningitis.
“And then there’s the medical side, so we have physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and a school nurse on site to support the young people with their physical needs as well as their academic needs.”
The school won a Families First award in its 60th anniversary year, and Ms. Donnan says teaching in a special needs school comes with many other rewards.
“Just today we celebrated that a child here can drive down the ramp at school independently in their own wheelchair,” she said.
“These are great rewards for us as employees because this child has worked all year to be able to control his/her descent in his/her wheelchair.
“We also recently celebrated a child being able to turn pages in an e-book on their iPad.
“For us it’s not about GCSE results and A-levels, although for some children they are wonderful.
“For us, it’s celebrating those little things and that makes the job really rewarding.”
The school’s anniversary year 2021/22 meant parties, special open days, visits from former students and an exhibition of photos and memorabilia from the years past in the auditorium.
Including, of course, a whiskey jug from Mitchell’s.
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