DECEMBER
Erasmus+ Project
Léargas is a not-for-profit organisation, wholly owned by the Department of Education and Skills, and its Board is appointed by the Minister. It was established to support international exchange and collaboration in the youth sector, mainly through the medium of European Commission-funded education and training programmes.
One of these programmes is the Erasmus+ which is the European Union programme for education, training, youth and sport for the years 2014 to 2020. It provides funding and support for organisations to operate projects consistent with its objectives and which encourage European exchange, co-operation and learning. Erasmus+ is funded by the European Union through the contributions of member states, including Ireland.
Erasmus+ aims to modernise and improve the quality of teaching, training and youth work across Europe, and to support the development, transfer and implementation of innovative practices. These objectives are closely tied with the Europe 2020 strategy of achieving a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy by 2020 for all of Europe’s citizens. Fundamental goals for Erasmus+ include improving key competences and skills, and fostering partnerships between education and employment. The programme also seeks to promote European values as stated in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
This year 19 students and 5 teachers from St. Mary’s College have been accepted on an Erasmus+ programme and over the coming 18months will be working in close cooperation with four other schools from across Europe to complete their project. The other schools involved are situated in Germany, France, Spain and Romania and each will be working on different aspects of the project entitled ‘Bien dans son corps, bien dans sa tête, bien dans son avenir’ or, in English, ‘Healthy in your body, healthy in your head, healthy in your future’. The project’s immediate aims are directed at fostering a sense of cooperation and fellowship amongst the students involved, and obviously in promoting a view for healthy living.
The project will involve visits by the St. Mary’s students to each of the participating countries to explore aspects of their educational practices, and to establish a link with their fellow students from each of the cooperating countries. Planning for the project is on-going, with the first major aspect occurring in January 2016 when 20 representatives from each school will visit Galway for a six day learning experience. They will be hosted by the College and will be participating in a series of events around Galway city and county.
At a special reception in the College the organising teachers met with the parents of the students chosen and outlined what would be happening over the foreseeable future.
College Feast Day
Well done to Radek, Mariola and all the kitchen staff for another brilliant performance, and to Fr. Barry, his servers and the choir for their excellent mass service. It’s a difficult job feeding a full Christmas dinner to over four hundred students but as usual they made it look easy.
Happy Christmas everyone!
Photos from the College Feast Day
Invitational Cross-Country
The College held a very successful 7th annual invitational over the blustery Mary’s grounds on December 16th. With an entry from 11 schools this was our biggest event yet as it continues to grow in popularity around the province. Over 300 boys took part and spectators were treated to a good afternoon’s Cross Country entertainment.
First into action were the First Year boys, and our first chance to see the talent of our new young athletes. And, we were not disappointed as Dylan Traynor-Canavan romped home to a successful victory.
He was supported by his teammates Kevin Walsh, Szymon Kryla and Patrick Nnandi and their 
The Second Year race proved successful for our team as we grouped strongly through the efforts of Des Costello-Hynes, Enoch Abiodun, Robert Fleming, Blake Cummins and
The Intermediate race was a grueling affair over three laps of cut up course but the Mary’s lads proved up to the task, finishing in second place behind the Bish. Kelvin Samson was the first runner home in 6th place, and he was closely followed by Gabriel Dossen, Gadzi Malaba and Henok Dems.
The Senior team saw strong runs from Diarmuid Mulkerrins and Eoghan Kelly 
Further details on the Athletics Page
This year’s Christmas charity drive is currently in full swing with all of our students and staff busily organizing events and collecting money for our chosen charities. This year we are supporting the Galway Hospice Foundation and the Irish Kidney Association Renal Support Centre in Beaumont Hospital. St. Mary’s College annually organises raffles, an auction, a charity carol singing session and has students collecting using contribution cards. To date, since the inception of the charity in 2001 we have raised €211 000 and this year we are proud to help both the Galway Hospice Foundation and the IKA Renal Support Unit. If you come across our collectors please support these worthy causes. Thank You.
The Galway Hospice provides a comprehensive range of Palliative Care services to patients with active and progressive diseases which cannot be cured. Galway Hospice Foundation is a voluntary organisation. It was established in 1986 when a group of local doctors and nurses came together with a view to developing hospice services for the people of Galway city and county, as no such services existed there at the time.
The Irish Kidney Association Renal Support Centre has been in operation since 2000. The Centre, located in the grounds of Beaumont Hospital, just 100 metres walk from the main hospital entrance, is open all year round and provides free accommodation for all its residents, who include:
- Families of kidney patients from outside Dublin. It is available to all families no matter what Dublin hospital their family member is attending.
- Kidney patients who have to travel long distances to see their consultant as an outpatient may stay overnight.
- The Centre arranges a counselling service, as required, by outpatients and their families.
- Preference for accommodation is given to families of patients receiving transplants from deceased and living donors and families of the seriously ill.
http://www.beaumont.ie/kidneycentre-aboutus-thesupportcentre
November
St. Mary’s College boys perform in the NUI Galway Orchestra Society charity Christmas Concert
St. Mary’s College choir performed on December 1st in the Christmas concert held on campus that featured several musical groups, including the St. Mary’s College choir. The choir, led by St. Mary’s teacher Richie Bell, joined the St. Nicholas Schola Cantorum Choristers and the NUI Galway Orchestra Society for a finale performance of four classic Christmas carols. Over 250 people attended the concert, which served as a fundraiser for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
The following St. Mary’s students performed:
- Joshua Brodricks, Thomas Caffrey, Conor Croke, Patrick Davoren, Aran Grealish, Nordine Kago, Tebogo Madire, Claudio Sangi, Selassie Seshie-Doe
St. Mary’s teachers Mr. Richie Bell, Mr. Colin McCaul, and Mr. Darragh Kerrigan also sang in the choir.
St. Mary’s College past pupil wins €1500 scholarship for outstanding Leaving Cert result.
Christopher Finn, a 2015 St. Mary’s College alumnus, has spent the past two years committed to academic excellence. That commitment and hard work paid off this past October, when Finn obtained 610 points on his Leaving Certification exam.
This achievement earned him top score in St. Mary’s this year and also top of the 800 first-year NUI Galway students in his Arts programme. The score also earned him one of 61 scholarships given by NUI Galway. The scholarship is a one-time award of €1500 and was presented on October 15th by the NUI Galway President Dr. Jim Browne.
Finn was excited to have won the scholarship. “All the hard work paid off. It was a really tough two years. I was delighted with the scholarship!”
St. Mary’s College alumnus wins €27,000 scholarship for outstanding Leaving Certification result
Keith Daly, a 2015 St. Mary’s College alumnus, is a recipient of this year’s prestigious All Ireland Scholarships, a scholarship programme developed and supported by JP McManus. Daly earned an outstanding Leaving Cert score of 585 and is presently a first-year student at NUI Galway, studying computer science.
The scholarship was presented on Saturday November 21st at the University of Limerick. Keith fell ill just before the ceremony and was unfortunately unable to attend. St. Mary’s Principal Ciarán Murphy accepted the award on his behalf.
Each year the All Ireland Scholarships awards ceremony features well-known guests of honour, with recent speakers including Irish Soccer Manager Martin O’Neill, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton. This year’s guest of honour was the world-renowned Irish jockey, Champion jockey 20 times, AP McCoy, who delivered a speech encouraging the 100 scholarship winners to make the best use of their talents through hard work and dedication.
Daly was excited to have won the scholarship. He remembers receiving an official-looking letter in the post, addressed with his full name. “When I opened it, I couldn’t really make sense of the words at first. I was stunned by the amount of the award! All the pressure of trying to find a job and money for University just disappeared.”
With the annual scholarship amount of €6,750, it is easy to understand how Daly no longer feels pressure about how to pay for his studies. He is quite serious about his studies and hopes to one day to work for Google, specifically on the Android mobile operating system.
Science Week
Science week around the College was a very busy one as we welcomed a number of visitors to the College and participated in a series of events.
Mr. James Soper, a renowned physicist with remarkable juggling and balancing skills visited the College and put on three shows for 1st, 2nd and 3rd years. The show was entitled the ‘Science of the Circus’ and used physics concepts to explain common acts and tricks we would see at a circus, or as used by magicians. The shows went down very well with the students and a full set of photographs can be found on our gallery page.
We also hosted the inaugural Fr. Seán Manning Primary School Science Quiz in the College. Thirty four teams from fourteen different National Schools around the county took part, with the eventual winners being St. John the Apostle Knocknacarra. The winners won the fantastic new trophy presented in honour of Seán, and also took home a brand new Laptop for their school, sponsored by Medtronic Galway. The event was a huge success with the organizing of the hall, collecting of and marking of answer sheets, and compilation of results all being done by our own third year science classes.
Students from the winning St. John the Apostle NS in Knocknacarra
We also succeeded in having some of our students selected for the BT Young Scientist for the second year in a row. This year saw the largest ever entry to the competition with over 3000 students and groups vying for the 500 places on offer. Therefore, it was great to get some of our groups through. Fifth year students, Mark Gilligan, Jeroen O’Flaherty and Shane Hastings qualified with their project entitled ‘Language: the next generation’, a social exploration into how language has been changing with the obvious development of a language gap between the generations. Second year student Eamonn MacDonnacha also qualified with his project which aims to find ‘ the ideal light suitable for the study of the movement of Hermit Crabs’ The lads are working hard on their projects and will be displaying them at the BTYS finals at the RDS from the 6th -10th January 2016.
Meanwhile, our senior science quiz team had a brilliant outing to the ISTA Galway Regional finals were they were narrowly beaten out of first place following a sudden death play off. They went on to compete at the All-Ireland Finals held at TCD where they finished an excellent tenth place out of the 48 teams there, and out of the 367 teams that had initially entered.
Science Quiz
Congratulations to both Mary’s teams who competed at the ISTA senior science quiz held at GMIT recently. 29 teams from all across the Galway region competed and our A team of Elijah O’Connor, Caolán Kelly- Delaney and Selasie Seshi-Doe were not found lacking as they finished top scoring team in joint first place, before narrowly losing out in a tie-break to Calasanctious Oranmore. They have now qualified for the All-Ireland final, which will be held in TCD on Saturday Nov. 21st. our B team of Kelvin Samson, Thilina Miguel Wassem and Eltahir Osman were very unlucky not to qualify as well, as with the top four teams getting through they finished fifth, a mere 1 point off the pace.
Front: Caolán, Elijah and Selasie
Back: Kelvin, Thilina and Eltahir
Results:
1. Calasanctious 37 (out of 48)
2. St. Mary’s 37
3. Salerno 32
4. St. Jarlath’s 30
5. St. Mary’s 29
6. Bish 28
The lads took part in the All-Ireland Finals held in TCD and, in what was a very tough quiz, put in a great performance to finish in 10th place. When taken into consideration that this was 10th out of the final 48 qualifying teams, and that 367 teams had initially entered the competition this was a marvelous performance. Well done lads.
Connacht Combined Events
The athletics year kicked off in fine style at the fantastic Athlone IT indoor arena in October. We sent down a small but very talented team of athletes, all of whom performed brilliantly on the day. 64 athletes were entered in the minor boys event, and after some great individual efforts Enoch Abiodun emerged in 6th place overrall. Close behind him were two first years making their debuts in the red and black of the College, and both of whom had brothers competing in the older age groups. Dylan Traynor-Canavan and Aaron Dossen both enjoyed their first taste of action, running two of the fstest 800m times of the day, and both will be back at the same age group next year.
At Junior level Francely Lomboto found himself just out of the medals when he finished in fourth place out of the 32 athletes entered. Indeed, only 40 points seperated the first four athletes in this event. Dennis Onuoha unfortunately failed to record a Long Jump and consequently was unable to feature in the end, although he did finish in the top half of the field.
Kelvin, Shane and Francely at the All-Ireland Combined Events in Athlone IT
At Intermediate level there were 19 competitors and we had our best performers as Kelvin Samson took his brother’s title to emerge as Connacht Champion, narrowly edging his team mate Shane Traynor-Canavan into second place. The scores were a very close 2765 to 2725. Ryan Traynor -O’Toole would almost certainly have completed a clean sweep for Mary’s had he not had three fouls with the Shot Putt, and thus failed to score. He eventually finished 6th, with Gabriel Dossen a place further back.
At Senior level Kamil Szymaszek was very unlucky not to win as he finished a close second, ahead of another Mary’s man Dylan Neary in third place.
All-Ireland
Shane, Kelvin, Francely, and Dylan later went on to represent Connacht and Mary’s at the All-Ireland’s, also in Athlone in November. Although there were no medals this time each athlete improved greatly on their Connacht performances and did the College proud.
Shane reversed the Connacht positions when he finished in 8th place from the 16 athletes entered, scoring 2865 points, 45 ahead of Kelvin who finished 10th. Francely also improved his Connacht score significantly, and finished as the second Connacht athlete in 9th place. Dylan, although running and jumping well finished in a very creditable fifth place in the Senior event.
Business Awards
Well done to fifth year students Shane Raftery, Aaron Cooke and Mark Gilligan who all received a commendation award from the NUIG Business Department to mark their outstanding achievement in the Junior Certificate Business Examination 2015.
The students are pictured here along with their teacher Mr. Gerry Dempsey and the Head of NUIG Business Department Dr. Kieran Conboy
Walter Burke Cup
Following an exciting tussle against local rivals the Bish we emerged victorious and regained the Walter Burke cup for Senior Soccer after an absence of two years. This was a very exciting match which saw two well matched teams battle it out not only for the cup, but also for valuable Connacht Cup points.
Mary’s took the lead early on with a goal from centre-back Nathan Ward, but despite numerous chances were unable to capitalize, and a defensive lapse near the end of the first half saw the Bish draw level, somewhat against the run of play. However, an opportunistic strike from Nathan Patrick Ward, spotting the keeper off his line and chipping him from the edge of the box, nearing the interval saw us take a deserved lead into the half-time break.
We started the second half in great form, and went close a couple of times before the tide appeared to change when Nathan Ward added to his earlier goal with a second yellow card and left the field. From the resultant free the Bish compounded the matter by striking for the equaliser, and with half an hour to play it looked ominous.
However, with our backs to the wall we upped our game and the biting midfield of Kamil Szymaszek and Jonas El-Ehmer ran themselves ragged to chase down the ball and afford the Bish no room to launch an attack. The defence, excellently marshalled now by Landau Ndombasi stood resolutely, and with Tommy Molloy causing all sorts of problems up front the Bish could not take control. Indeed, many of the better chances in the closing part of the match fell Mary’s way, and eventually their pressure paid off as Tommy pounced on a loose ball out of defence, rounded the keeper and slotted home what would ultimately prove to be the winning goal.
The referee’s whistle signaled the end of proceedings and the Mary’s lads celebrated their victory accordingly. Captain Kamil received the cup from principal Mr. Ciaran Murphy. Walter would have been proud of them.
October
NUIG Scholarships
Congratulations to 2015 Alumni Keith Daly and Christopher Finn both of whom received Scholarships to their course of choice at NUIG by virtue of their outstanding Leaving Certificate results. At a special ceremony in the College both students were presented with their awards by NUIG president Dr. Jim Brown
Keith has also won a prestigious JP McManus All-Ireland Scholarship, and will receive his award at a ceremony in UL soon.
St. Mary’s College Principal Mr. Ciaran Murphy along with NUIG Scholarship winners Christopher Finn and Keith Daly
HP Hackathon
Congratulations to the St. Mary’s coding team and their teacher Mr. Colin McCaul who finished a close second in the recent HP Coding Hackathon challenge. The lads were put to the pin of their collar to solve the various challenges devised by the HP team and following a very close fought contest emerged as runners-up to local rivals the Jes.
Calling all Foodies
St. Mary’s College are holding a fundraising event for a new school minibus on Tuesday 10th November 2015. This event, “Calling All Foodies” is aimed at showcasing artisan food producers.
Two function rooms in the Galway Bay Hotel have already been booked. In the Ballyvaughan Suite, four renowned chefs will give cookery demonstrations. This room is being arranged and outfitted by Kenny Maguire, Mac Nean House, Blacklion, Co. Cavan.
September
Presentations
At a special presentation in the study hall the College paid tribute to a number of current and past students who achieved excellence over the past couple of months.
Jeffrey Lynskey and Jack Forde with thei teammates and the Irish Press Cup
Chief guests on the day were members of the recent All-Ireland winning Galway Minor Hurling team. Former Mary’s men, Manager Jeffrey Lynskey and player Jack Forde were joined by the midfield dynamos Jack Grealish and Jack Coyne, and were greeted by a rapturous round of applause by the student body and staff gathered.
Special awards on behalf of the College were made to Jack and Jeff, and also to two other Mary’s students who recorded remarkable achievements over the summer. Diarmuid Mulkerrins was given an award for winning a world handball doubles title and finishing runner-up in the singles one wall final in Calgary, while Shane Traynor-Canavan received an award for being a member of the GCH 4x100m U-18 and U-19 teams that won two gold medals and set two national records over the summer. Both lads deserve massive praise for dedication and excellence.
Acknowledgment was also made to the members of the Intermediate 4x100m relay team, Shane, Ryan Traynor O-Toole, Selassie Seshi-Doe and Kelvin Samson who won a bronze medal at the All-Ireland finals in June, as well as to Paul Kelly, Fiachra and Eimhin Mulkerrins for being integral members of the Moycullen team that won the All-Ireland u16 basketball title at the Community Games finals.
Jeffrey Lynskey and Jack Forde
College President Fr. Barry Hogg along with Shane Traynor-Canavan and Diarmuid Mulkerrins
Minor Hurling Success
Well done to all of our past students who participated in the All-Ireland hurling finals over the weekend.
Hard luck to Fergal Moore, Dean Higgins, Tony Óg Regan and Tadhg Haran who were all part of the senior team set-up, and a brilliant well done and congratulations to manager Jeffrey Lynskey and player Jack Forde from the victorious minor team
August
Congratulations and well done to all of our class of 2015 who received their Leaving Certificate results in August. All in all everyone seemed very happy with their results with the vast majority feeling secure that they had achieved what they hoped for and were looking forward to the future.
Overall there were some excellent results, none more so than those of Christopher Finn (610 points), Keith Daly (585 points) and Rory Owens (595 points), all of whom are pictured here. Well done to each of the lads and to their teachers.
St Mary’s College students Christopher Finn ( 610 points) Keith Daly (585 points) and Rory Owens ( 595 points) who got top marks in the Leaving Certificate . All three have been offered and accepted third level courses.
June
All-Ireland Athletics
St. Mary’s had a very successful trip to the National Track and Field finals in Tullamore at the start of June. Having recording some excellent performances throughout the day we emerged with two sets of medals.
Samuel Samson once again showed why he has been one of the most talented athletes to wear the Mary’s colours when he won his seventh national medal, when his fast finishing brought him the bronze medal in the senior 400m Hurdles
Sam with his bronze medal for the 400m Hurdles
We had some great performances from Shane Traynor-Canavan in the Intermediate 400m Hurdles, and the 400m, just missing out on the medal positions, Blake Cummins finishing 6th in the minor 800m, from Antonio Lingurar who finished 7th in the Junior long jump, and from Andre Ferreira and Dylan Neary, who finished fifth and sixth in the senior 110m Hurdles. However, it was in the penultimate event that the icing was truly put on the cake when the Intermediate relay team of Ryan Traynor O’Toole, Selassie Seshi-Doe, Kelvin Samson and Shane Traynor-Canavan finished in third place to capture the first ever relay medals for the College.
It was a brilliant performance from four lads who put in a lot of very hard work and training and who got their just rewards.
Shane Traynor-Canavan, Ryan Traynor O’Toole, Kelvin Samson and Selassie Seshi-Doe with their National Bronze medals in the 4 x 100m relay.
May
Connacht Athletics Finals
This year we headed into the Connacht Track and Field season with the added addition of being the first school to ever capture all four best schools shields, so the pressure was on to hold on to as many as we could at the business end of the season. The South Connacht’s were very successful and saw us qualify 54 athletes in 76 different events. This gave us a great platform heading into the Connacht Finals in the middle of May. However, we found the going tough and really had to pull out all the stops to ensure holding on to the Junior, the Intermediate shield, and, after a great day long battle with Sligo Grammar, the Senior Shield. Winning this shield came right down to the wire, with us having to defeat a Sligo team containing the Irish record holder in the 4x100m relay. A brilliant performance by the Mary’s quartet took them home in second place, marginally ahead of their rivals, but far enough to hold on to the senior shield by 2 points for the ninth year in succession. Three shields also ensured us the Best Overall School trophy again. There were some great performances throughout the day, with winners in Shane Traynor-Canavan (Inter 400m, 400m Hurdles and relay), Sam Samson (Senior 400m Hurdles), Daniel Leporda (Inter Discus), Henrique Nkolovata (Senior Triple Jump), Andre Ferreira (Senior 110m Hurdles), and the inter relay team of Shane, Selassie Seshi-Doe, Ryan Traynor and Kelvin Samson. On now to the All-Irelands with our eye on more medals!
Mary’s Got Talent
It most certainly has! In front of a packed out gym of students, teachers and some parents we experienced plenty of talent as some of our ‘braver’ students put on a memorable show. There was a wide array of talents on show, including Moycullen’s finest Paddy Davoren with his magician’s act, Maik Lummp, our excellent juggler, first year Emmanuel Awoponle who wowed us with his Michael Jackson dance act, the dubious comedic talents of Rob and Brian (with honourable mention for Josh C and Cass the Horse) with ‘My Little Horse’ , the excellent piano playing of Lucas Hydzik, Jordan Gill’s rousing ‘Ring of Fire, Selassie Seshi Doe’s fine melodic voice, Henrique Nkolovata’s singing accompanied by his own piano playing, Claudio Sangi Joao and Aran Grealish, the Choir boys, and the Dail Comedy act put together by our first years. It was a great afternoon’s entertainment which saw Lucas emerge narrowly as the overall winner, just beating Emmanuel and Fr’s Ted and Dougal into second and third place respectively. Full range of photos can be seen in the gallery section.
Well done also to our excellent hosts for the show, Ms. Gráinne Kelly and Ms. Maura Geoghegan who kept things moving along wittily and nicely, to all the mentors who obviously(!?) put in hours of work with their acts, and to Mr. Richie Bell, who as always, came up with the ideas, and the organisation
All-Ireland Champions
Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice!! Well done to our first year basketball team and their coaches who won the All-Ireland championship at the NBA in Tallaght at the start of May. This was a fantastic achievement by this team of lads, many of whom only started playing the game once they came to Mary’s. backboned by the MVP Paul Kelly they beat Portlaoise CBS in the semi-final, before conquering Pobailscoil Inbhear Sceine from Kenmare in Kerry in the final, 24 – 21. Well done to all.
Also commiserations to our second year team who reached the semi-final later in the day but unfortunately lost our to a strong Portaloise
All Ireland First Year Basketball Champions 2015
Mary’s JC Science Quiz team. Back: Gabriel Dossen, Bryan Healy, Josh Pyne, Mark Gilligan, Shane Raftery Front: Jordan Miller, Shane Hastings, Hari Kharel, Jeroen O’Flaherty.
Junior Science Quiz
Well done to the Mary’s teams that competed in the recent ISTA Junior Science Quiz held at GMIT in May. 36 teams were entered from all across Galway county, and after a close fought affair they finished in fifth place, winning themselves a nice cash prize as one of the top teams.
South Connacht Athletics
Well done to all the athletes who competed at the recent South Connacht Finals. Once again it was an outstanding day for the Red and Black as we qualified 49 athletes in 74 different events for the Connacht Finals in Athlone. This was the largest number of qualifiers by far from any school in Connacht…roll on next week!
April
Following on from the exploits of our U-14 basketballers who narrowly lost their All-Ireland semi-final in the National Basketball Centre in Tallaght earlier this week our first year team gets its chance to progress when they play to their All-Ireland Semi-Finals this weekend, Sunday April 19th.
The action takes place in our own state-of-the -art hall when we play Jesus and Mary Gortnor Abbey at 11.45 and Castleknock Community College at 3.15. The winning team goes through to the All Ireland semi-final.
Best of luck to all the team and management.
Update!Update!Update!Update!Update!Update!Update!Update!
Congratulations to the first years who qualified for the All Ireland league semi-finals on April 19th. Winning their pool of the qualifiers in the St.Mary‘s college sports hall. In a hard fought first game St.Mary‘s beat Gortnor Abbey 45-31 with excellent displays from top scorer Paul Kelly, Ger Davoren and solid defensive performances from Enoch Abiodun and Adam Forde. Gortnor Abbey were beaten in the second game by Castleknock community college 41-14. The third game Mary‘s Vs Castleknock was a tour de force for Mary‘s winning on a score line of 37-18. Paul Kelly once again played a captain’s part and had great assistance from an ever improving Gerard Davoren. All-Ireland semi-finals take place in early May!
Squad:
Paul Kelly Gerard Davoren Enoch Abiodun Dessie Costello-Hynes Adam Forde Sheriff Subair Jack Gavin
Hayden Drury Seán Nevin John Flaherty Rykelmy Rodrigues
March
Connacht Champions
Well done to the first year basketballers and their coach Dale Creaven who won their first Western Region Championship after a deserved victory over St. Enda’s College.
Formula One Competition
Well done to our four first year students, Pedro Gil Quaresma, Hubert Matuszewski, Samuel Bomba and Abivharma Sangani, and their teacher Mr. Colin McCaul who performed brilliantly at the Formula One championships in Limerick recently. Our lads were the only team of juniors and had to compete against all the senior teams there. Despite this they won high praise from the judges and learned a huge amount of knowledge to carry forward into next year’s event.
Formula One is a very cross-curricular competition and to participate the lads had to design their own model racing car in Technical Graphics, build it, design a propulsion mechanism in Science class, advertise their team in the Galway Advertiser, develop and market their own t-shirts and pens, design their own website to highlight their car and finally approach various companies, especially Medtronic, to get sponsorship. It was a very tall order but the lads managed to pull it off successfully.
First Year Basketball
Into March and dreams of All-Ireland glory are once more to the forefront of our basketballers minds. The U-14 team followed up their successful victory over Ashbourne with another over Kenmare from Kerry to reach the All-Ireland Semi-finals. Paul Kelly was once again instrumental in pulling the strings for victory, amassing 20 of our 47 points as we emerged victorious on a 47-40 scoreline. He was ably backed up by Avelino Assogba with a ten point haul and William Onneyelson who scored three baskets.
Next up for the lads is a battle against St. Aidan’s of Cork.
Meanwhile our first year squad beat all-comers to win the first year blitz hosted by NUIG. Featuring teams from Carraroe, the Jes and St. Enda’s we won all our matches to give us a great confidence boost going forward.
January
South Connacht Cross Country
On a cold and sleety day in Loughrea St. Mary’s athletes showed that they were made of stern stuff when they successfully qualified all four teams for the Connacht Finals.
The minor team finished in second place, the Junior’s also finished second while the senior team took the bronze team medals. Best performances of the day came from Stephen Flaherty who finished as the fourth individual in the Junior boys race, and the Inter team who grouped really well to finish as overall champions. Full report on the athletics page
LCVP/ Bank of Ireland School Bank Launch
Leaving Cert LCVP students launched their school bank initiative on Wednesday 28.1.2015. LCVP students welcomed management and representatives from Bank of Ireland, Salthill to St Mary’s College.
School bank officials have undergone an arduous interview process and the successful candidates will now manage all aspects of the venture from sales & marketing to operations and audits under the guidance of their managers Naqi Ahmad and Jack Forde.
The school bank will be open every Wednesday at 1.15pm in the front hall. All students are invited to open a student account and are encouraged to establish good savings habits. Student accounts do not incur any transaction fees and applicants can bypass most of the paper work required when opening an account in a branch. Also new account holders will be entered into a weekly draw for a prize pack containing a Casio calculator and other school supplies. The school bank offers convenient on site services and is supported by experienced Bank of Ireland staff members.
LCVP students will enjoy this initiative across a variety of roles while learning about the banking sector and how to work effectively as a team. It is hoped that this experience will expand student’s knowledge of the financial sector while helping them make more informed decisions with regard to their own future careers.
The full team is;
Managers Naqi Ahmad, Jack Forde
Sales & Marketing Martin Kelly, Ciaran Cafferky, Kiearonne Virginio, Benjamin Browne
Operations & Audits Pawel Wedlarski, Pawel Szuskiewicz, Oran Diviney, Gerard Mangan
Customer Service Sean Kelly, Marvin Gwembe, Corey Hosty, Gavin Hegarty
Basketball All-Ireland Final
A brilliant performance from the lads saw us annex the U-19 Senior Basketball final at the National arena in Tallaght. In what was an enthralling match we overcame St. Vincent’s Dublin on a scoreline of 79 to 68, emerging as deserved champions.
All-Ireland Senior Basketball finalists 2015
Ryan Ferguson Eoghan Frain Sean Kelly Martin Kelly Ladmy Sila Eoghan Kelly Martynas Sakalauskas Faustus Tamilus Jordan Connolly
Naqi Ahmed Alex Murphy Diarmuid Mulkerrins Aran Grealish Keiaronne Virginio Ruairi Grealish Kelvin Samson Ovidijus Kvietkauskas
Congratulations to our U-19 senior Basketball team who qualified for the All-Ireland final by virtue of a 50 – 39 semi-final victory over De La Salle Waterford. It was a close match, with the teams being level at half-time. However, the Mary’s boys found their range in the third quarter and powered away to victory, thus setting up our first ever appearance in a senior All-Ireland Final.
BT YOUNG SCIENTIST 2015
Well done to our three teams of students who participated at the BT Young Scientist finals in Dublin last week. The nine students involved had a great time, and came home to Galway having had their knowledge greatly enhanced by what they saw and experienced at the finals. There is already talk of competing next year, and hopefully they will be able to follow through on the potential shown this year.
We entered three projects, ‘The Goldilocks Volume’: a Quest to find the perfect volume for study, prepared by second year students Thomas Caffrey, Dion Darcy and Tomas Levalds; ‘Insect Farms; Is this the future for Irish Farming’ prepared by Patrick Davoran, Ethan O’Brien and Danny McDonagh, also in second year; and ‘Hiding in the Net’: an Investigation into how the anonymity of the internet effects the answering ofsurveys. The final project was entered by Shane Hastings, Jeroen O’Flaherty and Hari Kharel, all in third year.
The lads all performed very well in their presentations and, although not winning any prizes this time around, all received very favourable comments from the judges. They also received considerable notice from the national media, appearing on RTE TV and Radio, as well as in the Irish Independent and the Irish Times! All in all it was a fantastic week of Science!
Should anyone feel they too would like to enter into next year’s competition we will be holding a short meeting about the event soon.
