European hockey champion

Congratulations to Shane (middle right) who represented Ireland on the Under 18 team at the Euro Nations Trophy in Vienna during July. Shane scored five goals during the tournament and the team beat France 5-3 in the final to win the European trophy.
Shane has also recently been selected for the Ireland senior A squad and is the youngest player ever to make this selection.

Young Scientist prizewinners

The project by Colm and Thomas was to investigate whether they could design a portable robust wind turbine which could be taken by a person when camping or involved in other outdoor pursuits to generate power to charge batteries, for example for a lamp. They succeeded in building and testing two devices, one of which proved to be able to supply a satisfactory charge of 4.3 volts and to have acceptable purchase and maintenance costs.

Orchestra in the National Concert Hall

Congratulations to all of the members of the orchestra and to its conductor, Ms M. White, on a magnificent, confident performance in the NCH on Saturday evening.
Their performances of Mendelssohn's "Hebrides Overture", a medley from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess", and Dvorak's "Slavonic Dance" were assured and obviously very well rehearsed.
The orchestra was invited to appear in the NCH as part of the 14th Irish Aviation Authority Festival of Youth Orchestras. Eight orchestras from around the country performed. Well done also to James Harding, Gavin Rothwell and Mark Horgan who were interviewed on stage! (Pictured right in rehearsal)

National winner of Hewlett Packard photography competition

Congratulations to Kit Connolly(Form 4) who is the overall national winner of the HP "Digital Imagination" competition 2007. Kit has won a laptop and a trophy, along with a digital camera for the school. The entrants to the competition were working under the coordination of Ms H. Killane of the Art Department. Other entries can be seen here. We are pleased to reproduce the winning photo "Illuminated"

1st Year team wins Chemistry competition!

Well done to the Form 1 team (and their teacher Dr Whitford) which won the Salters' Festival of Chemistry Salters' challenge on Saturday in Trinity College.
The judges were so impressed with the entry that the school has been invited to send a team to represent Ireland in the final of the Royal Society of Chemistry's "Top of the Bench" schools competition next April in the Science Museum, London, all expenses paid.

Scholarship to USA

Kellie O'Flynn has won a four-year scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in the world - Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. The scholarship, a combined sports/academic award, worth over $170,000, will make Kellie the first Irish woman ever to play on Notre Dame’s tennis team, which is the No. 2 college team in America. She has also been offered a free choice in the degree she wishes to pursue. What a wonderful opportunity! Well done, Kellie!!

Robert Farhat - first in Ireland

Robert achieved the top marks in Ireland in the Junior Certificate Music examination - well done!

On April 20, Robert took part in three competitions in advanced senior piano playing in the Sligo Feis Ceoil and obtained first prize and gold medal in all three. He consequently went forward as one of the six finalists - from various instrumental categories - to compete for the overall prize, where he achieved the overall prize of the Most Promising Musician of the Year and the Instrumental Bursary to the value of €1000.

Robert also took part, for the first time,in the senior section of the Dublin Feis Ceoil and was runner up in the Benson Cup for playing Bach and a finalist and third prize winner for the prestigious Nordell Cup (for playing a Sonata).
Robert will round up his musical activities of this school year with a solo piano recital in Paris on May 20.

First in Ireland and maximum points!

Ian Thom is presented with his trophy (right) for achieving 1st place in the Leaving Certificate in Applied Maths. Also in the picture are Mr J. Hickey, Ian's teacher and Mr Kevin Conliffe of Friary Publications. Well done!

Ian also scored maximum points in the Leaving Certificate.  Congratulations also to the many other students who almost reached the maximum and to all those who did their best and achieved worthy results. Hopefully you got the courses you wanted!

Superb Trinity College performances

Congratulations to Debbie Blair, Jack Kelly, Jack O'Kennedy, Stephen Shaw, Olwen Smith and Joan Somers Donnelly of last year's Form 6 who were awarded Entrance Exhibitions to Trinity College on the basis of the excellence of their Leaving Certificate results. Six awards is a very good performance by any school.

Teachnet award

Congratulations to Ms M. Hearne who completed her second Teach Net website over the summer and received an award from the Minister for Education at a ceremony at Citi Group, IFSC recently. The website, which is an Irish language teaching and learning aid, can be viewed at http://www.teachnet.ie/mhearne/2005/ 

Junior Science Olympiad medals
The Junior Science Olympiad is an international science competition. Students are selected for the Irish finals on the basis of their Junior Cert. Science results. The top100 students in the country were invited to enter the Irish Finals. The High School was qualified to enter six finalists, the highest number of finalists from any one school.  The finals were held at DCU on 5 November and consisted of three hours of tests on Science and Maths (and even included sudoko puzzles!). The top nine finalists were awarded medals and two of these went to High School pupils, a silver medal and a bronze. Our silver medallist will now go on, with five students from other schools, to represent Ireland at the International Competition to be held in Indonesia. Our bronze medallist will be on the reserve panel. Congratulations to all who took part.