With Christmas upon us, the first term of the school year will end on Friday next, 20th at 1.20pm. Buses will run at this time rather than the usual time of 4pm. First, second and fifth years will have house exams over the last few days which will provide plenty of focus right up to the break.
On Friday December 6th we held parent/teacher meetings for all 3rd and 6th year students which were very well attended. We thank all those who took the trouble to come along and to Mr Younger and the prefects for all the work in seetting up the hall and ensuring things ran smoothly.
Over the course of the past weeks there have been many activities taking place, both of curricular and extra curricular nature. Maths week and Science week were both marked with a number of events to encourage awareness and involvement in these subject areas. There have been open day visits to a number of third level institutions in addition to guest speakers visiting from others.
On Wednesday last a group of 18 boys took the trip to Gonzaga College in Dublin to take on the host school in a series of chess matches. By all accounts this was a most pleasant event and provided opportunity for that dedicated bunch af lads who pore over their pieces each lunchtime in the library. Many thanks to Ms Furlong and Ms Doyle in accompanying and encouraging the boys and to Mr Cassidy for his expertise and help.
We extend our congratulations to all those students who have achieved success across a variety of disciplines during the first term. There have been winners at the All Ireland Fleadh in music, among them Jon Reville, Michael Martin, Ciaran English. First year,William Roche, landed the British go kart championships while Tomas O’Connor and Eoin Porter both played on the Irish U-15 soccer team in Holland against the Dutch. Robert Vallejo recently played in a schools rugby international against Australia. Paul Murphy has been humbling a series of golf courses not only in Ireland but in Spain too. In Athletics there have been notable achievements by David O’Connor, Oisin Griffin, Richard Hennessy, Ryan Carty Walsh, Joe Mooney among others. Our school showjumping teams have landed several trophies with riders Jack Kehoe, Aidan Byrne, Eoin Byrne, Cian Aylward, Oisin Aylward, Jack Dalton, Jim Redmond and Noel Dunne the chief participants. There have been many other notable achievements which we sometimes do not even get to hear about in school and to these and all the students who take part in all manner of sporting and cultural activities, we say well done.
The college u-14 and u-16 football teams both had good recent wins against St Peters and Carlow CBS respectively. The u-14s have now qualified for the Leinster final while their u-16 counterparts are in the South Leinster final. The Junior Rugby team were most unfortunate to lose out by 1 point in their cup semi final against Naas last week but they put up some impressive displays along the way. Perhaps some of them will go on to emulate former student Tadhg Furlong who recently made his full senior debut for Leinster in a Rabo Direct game. Continued good wishes to him. Our very enthusiastic basketball team continue to progress under the expert supervision of Ms Dempsey and Ms O’Connnor and chalked up a significant victory in their most recent game.
We wish all those associated with the college, students, staff, parents, past pupils and friends the season’s blessings. Nollaig Shona díobh go lér.
