Explained at the BBC:
The idea is simple - if a child feels lonely, they can go to the bench as a signal that they need someone to play with. Another child will see them, go and talk to them and include them in their games...
Also known as friendship benches, these pieces of playground furniture have been around for a while, in various countries...
Apart from reducing social isolation and improving mental wellbeing, the hope is that the benches can tackle another problem found, to some degree, in most schools: bullying...
"They don't see it as stigmatised," says Sinead McGilloway, director of the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research at Maynooth University, who led a study of 117 pupils at three schools which have benches. Forty per cent of the children she questioned said they had used the bench, and 90% said if they saw someone else sitting on it they would talk to them...
In a symbolic gesture, the Buddy Bench Ireland team has its benches made by members of the Men's Shed movement.
There are more than 400 Men's Sheds in Ireland. They are a kind of hobby club where men, usually middle-aged or older, come together to make things. It's proved a lifeline for many coping with issues such as divorce and bereavement, by helping them to open up and talk about what they are going through.
We all have our prejudices, and one of my strongest is against any man who feels unable to share his most personal thoughts in the presence of women, yet can so in an exclusively male environment. To me, that makes no sense at all. Yet I know that not all men who feel this way are intentionally sexist, and a few even feel ashamed of it. So my prejudice is not always reasonable, but in my gut that's hard to admit.
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