The 28th Transition Year English Evening took place last night in the Big Schoolroom, compèred by Mr Jameson, after its two-year hiatus. The guest of honour was the author Richie Conroy, whose comments on the individual pieces are in italics below Nine members of the Fourth Form read out pieces of writing: Phoebe Landseer opened […]
Sunday evening saw the special event that is Voices of Poetry return to the Big Schoolroom in its long-lasting and infallible format: a pupil or teacher reading a short poem after a brief explanation in a darkened room, picked out by a single spotlight. Some of these were in languages other than English: it is […]
FORM PRIZES: congratulations to this year’s winners of these prizes, awarded for academic performance across all subjects. Presentations take place at the St Columba’s Day Celebrations on June 4th. Sixth Form: Theodora Clare, T.J.Hopkins, Avi Johnston, Marcus O’Connor, Mika Sacolax. Fifth Form: Tomas Casado, Kamilla Murphy, Fiona Noack, Isabel Warnock. Fourth Form: Hannah v Bergmann, […]
In October 2019 the College held the enormously successful first-ever researchED event in Ireland, with 350 visitors on the campus throughout the day listening to a series of stimulating presentations on best practice in education. Read a report on that day here. Check out the short video below. The 2020 event had to be cancelled […]
Remembrance in Ireland is not easy, at least not when it comes to the First World War, where, it is estimated, up to 50,000 Irish soldiers may have lost their lives. For a century it has been fraught with complexity and I, as an Englishman, cannot claim to fully understand the situation in Ireland in […]
We are delighted that our first open event on campus for prospective pupils since September 2019 will take place on the evening of Thursday 19th May, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. This will be an opportunity for pupils seeking entry in 2023, 2024 or 2025 at any age to see around the College with their parents. […]
Ms Kent-Sutton, our Librarian, writes: Book Week has returned to the College after a small hiatus with teachers getting into the spirit of things by decorating their classroom doors with designs based on their favourite books. Thank you to all the staff members who took time out of their busy schedules to decorate their doors […]
On March 12th 2020, the Taoiseach announced from Washington DC that all Irish schools would close that day due to the impending pandemic threat. The Sixth Form then thus never got the chance to end their school careers as normal, and go through all the rituals associated with leaving school. Yesterday, at last under a […]
The Warden writes (10th March 2022): I haven’t blogged much this year, perhaps because there is a limit to how often people need to read my thoughts about coping with the pandemic and life has been dominated by that for so long. Now, of course, just as life is returning to normal, we are facing […]
The last weekend of term featured another welcome artistic moment (following Matchbox Theatre on Friday evening). Mrs Malone-Brady put together a 40-minute concert which was shown twice, to keep audience sizes down, and it was a delight. The evening opened with an instrumental group (Monty Walsh, Liam Campbell, and Joshua Chan), who performed ‘Legends of […]
The latest edition of the pupil magazine, The Submarine, has now been published, and can be read online via Issuu here. The new editors are Isabella Treacy, Elizabeth Hart and Phoebe Landseer. Elena O’Dowd reviews this year’s book club choice, All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue, there is poetry by Marianne Lee and Delia […]
Last night in the Big Schoolroom there was a welcome return to the stage of Senior Drama, with a production of five of Michael Frayn’s (very) short plays in his book Matchbox Theatre. The production ran three times (for 30 minutes), to allow smallish audiences to see it, and they flanked the central performance space […]
This is the text of the Warden’s sermon at the first Evensong of term, last Sunday. Who is Your Neighbour? Who is your neighbour? The two greatest commandments in the Bible, we are told, are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and to love […]
Many congratulations to last year’s Sixth Form, who today received their Leaving Certificate results. They had a very difficult year, and their studies were repeatedly disrupted, so it is greatly to their credit that they completed the year so strongly, and that their results were excellent. Due to the unique mixture of the accredited grade […]
The College community sends its best wishes and congratulations to the former Sub-Warden, Housemaster of Stackallan and Geography teacher Mr Norman Lush, on his 100th birthday today. He celebrates this event at home in Somerset together with his wife Joyce, and the rest of his family, including his Old Columban children Nicola, Colin and Tessa. […]
From the Warden: 16th June 2021 This is what I would have said at the St Columba’s Day celebrations in the Sports Hall: How do I begin to summarise the year that is just finishing? Perhaps some future archivist will be trawling through the speeches of Wardens of yesteryear and will come across these words […]
Congratulations to the winners of the 2020-21 subject prizes, normally presented at the St Columba’s Day celebrations, but this time by the Warden at Whispering House during recent days. They are: SURNAME, FIRST NAME PRIZE FORM Mann Oran Old Columban Society Scholarship Form I Pollock Sophie John Bevan Classics Prize Form I Finn Ciara Junior […]
As a small sign that things may slowly be returning to ‘normal’, the first BSR drama production for over a year took place on Thursday. It was to small, masked, socially-distanced audiences, with just two performers: Emily McCarthy as Vladimir and Isabel Warnock as Estragon in an excerpt from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. They put it […]
