Northern Ireland Irish Public Speaking Finalists 2009

Congratulations to Declan Magee, Year14, and to Ryan Walsh and Daniel Smith, Year 12 Students who won the regional heat and will now represent the Abbey in the Northern Ireland Final next month. There is a long tradition of Abbey Students excelling in Irish Public Speaking over the years and have been represented in the Northern Ireland finals for the last seven or eight years.

Representing the Abbey in the GCSE section, Tiarnan Jackson (Year 11) and Stephen Doherty (Year 12) were highly commended by the adjudicators for their highly informative and entertaining speeches on the current banking crisis and the influx of shoppers to Newry prior to Christmas. Daniel Smith (Year 12) took the second place award and booked a place in the Northern Ireland Final with a critical speech on the bureaucracy of the current Driving tests. The limelight was however reserved by Ryan Walsh (Year 12) who opened the competition with a satirical speech based on the competition in which he was taking part ‘Abair’. Ryan and Daniel were also presented with a half-scholarship to attend Gael-Linn’s Machaire Rabhartaigh Gaeltacht course.

In a highly competitive senior AS / A2 section, Kevin Hegarty (Year 13) was highly commended for his humorous speech on Irish descendents with whom he is either proud or embarrassed of. Declan Magee (Year 14) in his third year of the competition walked away with the Senior Award booking himself a place in the Northern Ireland Final next month also. Declan encapsulated the spirit of the competition by capturing the attention of the judges and audience with his satirical speech on the recent attack upon George W Bush by an Iraqi Journalist.

Many congratulations to all our participants for their hard work and success, we wish them all the best in the Northern Ireland Finals next month.