ST. COLMCILLE’S COMMUNITY SCHOOL NEWS

Extra Curricular Sports Activities
The Cadette girls played very well this year although their season is now over. Thank you once again to Mary Pat Prendergast for all her help.

Musical: 'Grease Is The Word'
At last, musical time is here. Amongst an array of pom-poms, leather jackets, pyjama parties and high school dances, we are almost ready to put on our show. The Art Department is very busy painting and putting the finishing touches to the scenery whilst Ms Beirne co-ordinates the costumes. There are singing and dancing routines being practised in all corners of the school. It is rumoured that some of the teachers are rehearsing a number - more about that later.
Grease is our fifth musical and we are all delighted to be working on it. Everyone knows the musical numbers and there is a great air and buzz around the building. The cast of students are as usual an excellent bunch and their talent knows no bounds. So off we go and enjoy these last few days before we go on stage.

Fund Raising
On Friday, the 22nd of October, students organised a colours day in the school in aid of The Irish Guide Dog Association as part of their CSPE action project. The amount raised was €1,074.59. Also a raffle was held in the school to raise money for the victims of the Beslam Massacre. It was organised by Amy Molloy, Ciara Timbs, Mark Ibbiston and Laoighse Styles of 5A. The raffle was a huge success raising €650. Thanks to all who contributed.

Health & Beauty - 'Being Beautiful in St. Colmcille's Community School'
The 6th year girls at St. Colmcille's are being 'made beautiful' with the help of Ms Gilroy. Every week students are being given practical advice as well as beauty techniques as to how to best take care of their skin. All students who successfully complete the course will receive a certificate and a 'beauty goodie bag'. Ms Gilroy who is a qualified beautician and who works part-time in John Adam Beauty Salon, Clerys, will be offering a beauty class from January as part of the schools Adult Education Programme. Please contact the school for further details.

Transition Year
All Transition Year students are just after their first week of work experience in different businesses around the city. Students seemed to benefit greatly from this experience and enjoyed working in areas that they are interested in as a future career. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all businesses and organisations that employed our students and gave them this opportunity.

Carol Singing
Students from the school will be carol singing in an effort to raise money for the Simon Community. This will take place outside Superquinn in the weeks coming up to Christmas. Please support this worthy cause.

Operation Christmas Child
The students of St. Colmcille's Community School with the help of Ms Gilroy have once again risen to the challenge of responding to people in need. As part of our regular fund-raising ventures, students from 1st-6th year filled shoe boxes with various gifts for children aged 2-14 years of age. These shoeboxes will be shipped abroad by the Christian agency 'Samaritans Purse'. Last Christmas over 200,000 gift-filled boxes were delivered to children in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, Croatia, Romania and Serbia.

Ministers of the Eucharist
Some of the transition year students in St. Colmcille's Community School are being trained to be Ministers of the Eucharist by Ms Gilroy. It is envisaged that the students will serve both the needs of their school and their local parish. The students will be commissioned just before Christmas.

Debating
On Wednesday the 17th of November as part of the Concern Annual Debating competition, a debate was held between our school and St. Joseph's of Cluny. The motion under debate was 'That GMO's are the answer to 3rd World hunger'.
The debate opened with a hard-hitting speech from Liam Devine while Rory Geraghty involved the audience with factual information about the death rate in these countries. He highlighted that for every breath we take 6 people around the world die from starvation. The debate became more heated as either side threw across their passionate arguments. Sam McCutchen surprised everyone when he informed us that a lot of food is genetically modified and that the natural colour of carrots is in fact purple!
St. Joseph's were bewildered by the reference to the carrot but succeeded in opposing the motion strongly. Their captain enforced Ghandi's belief that it's not need that causes world hunger, it's greed.
Sadly the motion was defeated, however everyone agreed it was a thoroughly enjoyable debate.
- Cassie Delaney, Fiona Byrne, Deirdre Glynn and
Sally Medbury

HURLING REPORT
Incredible Comeback in Extra Time
There were no late sleepers in Crumlin as all were awoken to the thundering noise from the supporters of Knocklyon who entertained the neighbourhood with their incredible chants and music.
Colmcille's emerged victorious in what was an intense, dramatic thriller in O'Toole Park. The Colmcille's supporters (led by Joanne Gallagher and Anne Griffin) were there in numbers and created a deafening noise, with their drums, foghorns, whistles, bodhrans, tin whistles, flutes and trumpets.
Whatever breeze was blowing favoured Coolmine and Colmcille's started on the back foot. The Coolmine forwards were taking their scores and only for the tenacious defence of Colmcille's would have pulled away. Colmcille's hung in there 'till the break and were behind by an incredible 12 points. A stirring half-time team talk left the boys in little doubt about what they had to do. The Colmcille's supporters really lifted the boys after the break. On the sideline you could sense the tide was turning. Spurred on by their inspirational skipper Liam McCarthy and the preciously talented David O'Connor, Colmcille's began to get a foothold and displayed the passion and commitment that was sorely lacking in the first half.

However, Coolmine weren't lying down and were taking their fair share of scores as well. The goalkeeper heroics of Stephen O'Connor kept the match alive, notably his composure under the high ball. Going into the last five minutes Colmcille's were up by a wonderfully taken point by Ciaran Brennan. Under the most contentious circumstances Cool mine equalised to send the game into extra time. The Colmcille's lads regrouped and built up a 3 point lead. However in keeping with this match Cool mine fought their way back and without the defensive brilliance of centre-back Eoin O'Reilly would have been further in arrears. His booming high balls into the forwards provided a platform to attack from. At the half-time break it was all square and another rousing team talk lifted the now shattered lads and the Colmcille's supporters really helped them. After the break Cool mine came out the better side and scored a goal but Colmcille's dug deep and scored a point. Deep into injury time the match was virtually lost until, incredibly David O'Connor, to cap off his supreme man of the match performance, scored brilliantly to win the match for Colmcille's. There was a scene of jubilation among the supporters as Liam McCarthy lifted the cup.