 St Aidan's CBS, Whitehall, Dublin, Ireland |
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| St Aidan's CBS, Whitehall, Dublin, Ireland |
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Date: Thursday, 9th March 2006
St. Aidan's boys trounced their opposition yesterday with a strong performance in the first rounds of the AIB Phil Speaks debating competition. David E. Doyle emerged as the strongest speaker in the nationwide competition. Best team prize was awarded to Cathal Ormonde and Cathal Gavin, and these along with Andrew Linn and Robert Ryan were put through to the finals, where in a debate hosted by David Trimble they will compete to win a trip to Hong Kong. Anthony Madden also distinguished himself in his first competitive outing while valuable support was provided by Eoin Ó Liatháin. The team was prepared by Mr. T. O'Connor, ably supported by Mr. Oliver Deneher.
Thus far, 2005/06 has been a particularly successful year for debating and public speaking in St Aidan's. Pupils have been competing both internally and externally in various disciplines, and the school has now established a formidable reputation in this area. Hopefully, the following achievements can be used and built upon in the coming months and years.
One of the highlights of the year so far was the First Year Public Speaking competition. This involved all pupils from the four classes and culminated in an excellent final between Darragh Fleming, Barren Maher, Gavin Geraghty and Kevin Murtagh. The standard was extraordinary for such 'novices', and after much consultation Darragh Fleming became the inaugural winner of the Br Sweeney Memorial Cup.
Earlier in the year, the Junior Debating Competition attracted 32 participants, with a high standard evident throughout, especially as many of the pupils were competing in such a manner for the first time. In the final, Andrew Lynn and Matthew Lacey narrowly defeated Scott Malone and Anthony Madden.
Andrew Lynn and Luke Donegan represented the school in the Leinster Junior Debating competition in Wesley Secondary school, and Andrew was successful in progressing as a best speaker. He is a talented and forceful debater, and one who will certainly enjoy success in the coming years. Recently along with Anthony Madden, he competed in the AIB Leinster Schools competition and again qualified as a best speaker.
An in-house debating competition is in progress at the moment, and it should be of a high quality judging by the performances put in by pupils outside the school this year. David E Doyle and Cathal Gavin have developed a formidable partnership, (even if they were unable to combat the might of Mr Carmody and Mr Deneher in a demonstration debate earlier in the year!) and had some outstanding successes in the UCD L&H competition in November. They also fared well in the Denny Leinster Schools competition, with David winning his way to the quarter-final stages, a remarkable feat for a young man in his maiden year of competitive debating. The pair are currently in the second round of the aforementioned AIB competition, qualifying as 1st and 3rd best speakers respectively. In the same competition, Cathal Ormond and Rob Ryan also qualified as a best team on what was the school's most successful outing to date.
Cathal Gavin, Paul Blanchfield and Rob Ryan aquitted themselves well at the Mental Health Ireland public speaking competition, while Cathal Ormond seemed very at home in the plush offices of Gay Mitchell in January, debating the intricacies of an EU common defence policy.
Debating and public speaking is an invaluable extra-curricular activity to have in a school. It gives pupils a fantastic grounding in general knowledge, research and analytical skills and argument construction. More importantly however, it develops self-confidence in situations which will be crucial later in life, such as job interviews, presentations (and pub rows of course!) The debating society in St Aidan's has had a very successful year, and for this a large thank you is due to the many members of staff at the school who have given much spare time to the competitions, but mostly to the pupils who have dedicated hours in the cause of a 'good argument'. Hopefully, this trend will continue, and the numbers of participants will increase along with the regularity of successes.
Mr. Oliver Deneher