It has been a very busy few months for those students who take part in Debating in Loreto College.  Juniors have taken part in the Colaiste na hInse Mace, the Loreto College Mace, the Irish round of the International Competition for Young Debaters (ICYD), and the Leinster Junior Debating Competition in UCD.  Meanwhile our seniors have been taking part in the Irish round of the Cambridge Schools Debating Competition, the Concern Debating Competition, the Aoife Begley Debating Competition and the Leinster Schools Debating Competition.

Most of these competitions are in the early stages and we have had a lot of excellent results with students placing in the top two teams to secure progression to the next round.  We would like to especially congratulate Aoileann Ni Mhurchú, Tara O'Sullivan, Ellen McKimm and Adrianne Ward.  All four girls made the final of the Colaiste na hInse Mace with Aoileann winning an award for topping the tab and Tara winning the best speaker in the final award.  They also all made the final of the Irish round of the ICYD with Ellen and Adrianne winning the final and securing a place in the international finals day later in the year in Cambridge.

We would like to congratulate our new debating secretaries for the year.  Ciara Barry and Siofra Brady will be running our junior debating club debates every week.  Alex Byrne and Anna Bourguignon have been appointed to run mace debating for the year.  They have already shown what a good appointment that was as they organised an excellent competition last month.  They were ably assisted by numerous 5th year students (debaters and non-debaters) who helped them set up, organise and clean up throughout the entire Saturday.  The competition ran very smoothly because of all their hard work.