Certified Irish Angus Beef Schools 2022 Finalists
Fifth Years Rebekah Smith, Evie Smyth, Kaitlyn Ryan and Gráinne Callanan, Certified Irish Angus Beef Schools Finalists 2022, jetted off to Brussels last week to the European Parliament to meet MEPs and beef industry representatives. The students, accompanied by their teacher Ms Hogan, spent the first day, of this once in a lifetime trip in Lismullin Cookery School where they learned how to cook a steak. Next it was a visit to Bord Bia HQ in Dublin where they were told about the work done by the State body to market Irish food, including Certified Irish Angus beef, internationally. They also met past pupil Tara Hyland who was thrilled to get the opportunity to discuss her work with some fellow Ursulines. In Brussels they met with Irish politicians including Sean Kelly, Máiread McGuinness and Colm Markey. They presented their project on farm safety, which won them five Irish Angus calves, collected at the National Ploughing Championships in September last year. This group are heading to Croke Park on Friday, 31 March where they will be joined by the Ursuline National Finalists from 2021. Sixth Years Gráinne O’Donnell, Karen Campion, Louise Hickey and Louise Creagh, hope to be the overall winners of the competition, after raising their five Angus calves to send to market at the end of last year. Also heading to Croke Park are this year’s Certified Irish Angus Beef group through to the final round, Moya Brennan, Ashling O’Loughlin and Holly Byrne, TY. They will give a presentation of their findings on soil sustainability touching on areas such as on crop rotation, carbon sequestration, soil pH, cover crops, slurry and chemical fertilizers and anaerobic digesters. Good luck to all three Angus Teams at the different stages of the competition, they are to be commended for all their hard work to date. The groups are flying the flag for women in Agriculture.
Public Speaking
Congratulations to both Ursuline teams who have qualified for the All Ireland Final in the Knights of St Columbanus Pubic Speaking Competition. TY students Rosa Ryan, Shauna Walsh and Gillian Aherne will be up against friends Kate Fitzgerald, Neave Chesire and Fiona Maher. The adjudicator of the Regional Final said she loved the approach and material of both teams and they were presented with a €400 cheque for the school, a trophy and Gemma Fitzgerald got a special prize for standing in for Shauna on the day who was unavailable.
In another Public Speaking competition, ARTiculation, TY student Hannah Murphy won the Munster Final held in the County Museum in Clonmel on Friday, 10 March. Hannah gave a ten-minute presentation on the Daniel Maclise painting, The Marriage of Aoife and Strongbow, which hangs in the National Gallery. The standard of public speaking was very high and Hannah did an excellent PowerPoint to win the region. She will now go onto represent Munster in the All Ireland Final.
The First Year In House Public Speaking Competition run by Ms Quinn came to a very successful conclusion on Friday, 10 March with Ruth O’Connell, Máire Kearney and Eleanor Doyle delivering well written, well researched and competent speeches on the topic of Courage. Ruth came first with Máire and Eleanor coming in a very close joint second. Well done to all First Years who entered and many thanks to Ms Quinn for running the competition.
Second Year Charity Walk for in aid of Meitheal House
Well done to Second Year Class 2A who organised a sponsored walk for their Year Group and raised over €1130 for Meitheal House in Thurles which supports people with Down Syndrome and their families. The students did a circuit of the Jimmy Doyle Road and at the end of their walk they had a continental breakfast together. Thanks to Ms Whelan, their CSPE teacher, who helped the students in 2A arrange the charity event and a raffle which was a huge success. She even brought her dog Beau along for the exercise. He proved to be a big hit with all the walkers, both students and teachers, who accompanied their Second Year classes.
Junk Kouture National Finalists
The Ursuline has two designs through to the National Final of Junk Kouture which will take place in the 3Arena in Dublin in May. ‘Noteworthy’, modelled by Katie Hanamy was made by Katie and Lilly Nesbitt using old sheet music, gold fabric from inside a piano, piano keys and a piano hammer. They even transformed a broken violin into a very stylish handbag. The inspiration behind their creation was the film Black Swan as it reflects the duos love of music, dance and theatre.
The other Ursuline Finalist is ‘The Eye of the Beholder’. It is modelled by Lauren Egan and the team includes Lauren and friends Shauna Walsh and Zoe Whelan. They based their dress on the cursed figure of Medusa from Greek Mythology who has become, in recent times, a symbol for sexual assault survivors. They used discarded Electric Picnic tents, 1600 hand cut petals made from milk filter socks, a broken garden hose and 3D printed snake heads to create a very dramatic design.
Well done to the other two Ursuline groups who got selected for the Southern Regional Final. What Goes Around Comes around was a Willy Wonka inspired purple jumpsuit ensemble which was the brainchild of Fiona Maher and Holly Ryan. The other Southern Regional Finalist from UCT was made by friends Hannah Murphy, Olivia Ralph and modelled by Sarah O’Gorman. They turned to the Queen of Hearts as the template for their design which was fittingly title ‘Off With His Head’. They used bubble wrap, old lotto tickets, acrylic offcuts, plastic bottles and old hessian bags and shower caps to produce a very dramatic look.
Well done to all ten entrants in this year’s competition. They have done themselves and the School proud with their hard work and creativity.
Ag Science Trip to Gurteen
The Fifth and Sixth Year Ag Science classes attended the Agri Aware Open Day at Gurteen on Tuesday, 7 March. They got to see dairy, beef and sheep units along with information sessions on farm safety, the environment and animal nutrition. It was very informative and great for the students to see a working farm in action.
Games Fleadh TUS
A number of TY students interested in Gaming and the Tech Industry were delighted to get the opportunity to go to the Games Fleadh in TUS on Wednesday, 8 March. They learned about coding, digital media, gaming and had a talk about women in Tech to celebrate International Women’s Day.