Ballycastle: Minister cuts sod on £72m shared campus site

Joe Cassidy, vice-principal of Cross and Passion College, said the new facilities will be “the envy of all the people in Northern Ireland”.

“The sporting aspect of the facilities will be top of the range and that then brings in the whole community,” he said.

Eloise McCurdy, 18, a pupil at Ballycastle High and a member of the joint school council, made up of pupils from both schools, she says the council has achieved a lot already by working together.

“We got the crossing put in between the two schools and we’ve changed the bell times so that we would finish at the same time,” she said.

Rioana MacAuley, 18, from Cross and Passion, and she has enjoyed being part of the lobbying for the new shared campus.

“We’ve been to meet government leaders and political meetings, different conferences, to make sure that we are being heard within our environment,” she said.

“But also so that Northern Ireland as a whole gets to learn about how we’ve come together despite what people think are big problems.”