Second class pupil at St Brigid's National School in Greystones (co. Wicklow, Ireland), Laoise Mangan (9), in the summer months of last year, she discovered an odd looking stone on the ground while walking in the school yard. She brought the stone into her then teacher, Mr Martin Dodd, who, luckily, just happened to have a degree in Archaeology. Mr Dodd forwarded it to an acquaintance of his, Dr Muiris O'Sullivan, at the Department of Archaeology in U.C.D. To Laoise's surprise, the school received word shortly before Christmas that the stone dated from the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age (2000 BCE), and was most probably used as a tool for scraping meat from animal hides.
     Laoise is reportedly thrilled with her find, which has now been dubbed, 'Laoise's special stone' by teachers at St Brigid's. "Can you imagine it? It was so lucky. If she had brought it in to any other teacher they probably would have just thrown it away," said Mary Beausang, a teacher at St. Brigid's. "Now we have dozens of pupils bringing stones in from the yard to Mr Dodd for examination...and we will always check with him before we ask them to put them back in the yard!" she said.

Source: Bray People (19 January 2006)