Before lunch on Wednesday (April 20th) the Boys’ Chapel was packed for the third Headmaster’s Assembly of the year. After the opening prayer by the Rector, Fr Michael Sheil, the Headmaster, Mr Chris Lumb took to the podium to recognise some of the achievements of our students in recent weeks.
His first task was to congratulate the newly appointed House Leaders from among the ranks of the current Poetry students. Congratulating the new leaders on their appointments, Mr Lumb spoke of the importance of leadership within the school and the responsibility that comes with it.
A full list of the new leaders is shown below:
- Arrupe – Charlie Coonan, Rian McKeagney
- Collins – Cal Jones, Michael O’Brien
- Claver – Conor Galvin ,Dan Sheehan
- Gonzaga – Colin Burke, Shane Hogan
- Hopkins – Rory Gavigan ,Bryan Murphy
- Kenney – Jack Gilheany, Ronan O’Kelly
- Kostka – Hugo Dwyer, Sean McCrohan
- Loyola – Hugo Murray, Arthur Odlum
- Sullivan – Christian Casey, Richard Walsh
- Xavier – Cian Horneck Johnson, Eamon Ward, James Lambe
Grammar Achievements
Mr Lumb then went on to outline some of the achievements of the boys in Grammar over the past number of weeks:
Robert Savage represented Ireland in the International under 19 tetrathlon championships in Barcelona over the weekend. He is now ranked 27th in Europe – a great achievement considering he still has another three years in the competition.
John Maher, Tom Coghlan, Ryan McMahon and Joe Carroll have been selected for trials for the Leinster Under 16 development squad, which is taking place on Wednesday afternoon in Terenure.
Mark Galvin (Grammar) was part of a team that won the Fred Daly competition in Ballybunion Golf Course over the weekend. They are now through to the final of the Munster section of the competition, which will take place over the bank holiday weekend.
Conor McCabe represented Ireland in the Tri-Nations Tennis championships in Scotland in February at Under 15 level. He has also made the finals of the national indoor championships in an individual competition at Under 16 level and came second in the national winter match plays representing Leinster, also at Under 16 level.
In addition the Grammar boys hosted Mount Sackville on Wednesday April 6th in a fundraiser quiz in aid of the Duck Push raising over 350 euro for the charity.
Mathematical Modelling Project Presentations
The Headmaster congratulated the 20 boys from Poetry who recently presented their final mathematical modelling projects to an audience of professors, lecturers and graduate students at the University of Limerick. The response the boys received from the audience in U.L. was marvelous as they fielded questions from professional mathematicians who were hugely complimentary of the quality of the presentations and the content of the models.
Mr. Lumb remarked that this co-operation with U.L. is a hugely valuable initiative that is unique to Clongowes and he thanked all those involved especially Mr. O’Hara. Mr Lumb told the assembly that one of the participants in the first group, Daniel Giles, currently studying theoretical physics at UCD, will undertake a 10 week summer internship with Professor Glesson in UL which is the recognised centre of excellence in Ireland.
Rugby Under 15s
Calum Dowling, captain of the Clongowes Rugby Under 15s then presented the Headmaster with the trophy for the annual Umbrella 7s tournament that they won last Saturday scoring over 25 tries in the process.
Senior Soccer Success
Team captain Jack McCreevy presented Mr Lumb with a cup for retaining the Combined Counties Football League Under 19 Division, which they had won for the first time last year, when it was one of four trophies won by them. Their performance this year was especially impressive as they were crowned champions with two games to spare.
‘Sullivan’ Win Literary Quiz
House leader, Michael Stapleton presented the Headmaster with the trophy that his quiz team representing ‘Sullivan’ House won in this year’s James Joyce Library Literary Quiz. Stapleton with team-mates, Rian McKeagney, Frankie Reilly, Dylan Liddy and Luc Curley scored 46 points out of a possible 50.
Triangle Race
The Headmaster also thanked all those involved in organising and competing in the annual Triangle Race, which took place in Clongowes last night. The full list of winners is available here.
Silver Awards Presentation
Mr Lumb presented ten students from Elements with certificates for taking on the challenge of developing their reading through diversifying their choice in books through reading tasks such as reading a book set in a non-English speaking country, reading a book that that is part of a series, reading a book set during an historical wartime event and reading a book dealing with sport
Certificates were presented by Mr Lumb to Matthew Cassidy, Luc Curley, Oisin Devitt, Daniel Groome, Bryan Houlihan, Luke Johnston, Brian MacHale, Rory MacGabhan, Niall McGeady and George Zhuckhov.