Irish debating in the “Gael Linn” competition starts in November. There is one junior team and one senior team. Three people debate on each team. Trials are required to make it onto the team. Debaters need to be able to learn off a three minute speech in Irish at junior level and five minutes at senior. The 1st speaker introduces the team and topic, the 2nd and 3rd speaker has to argue and refute the opposition's points and sum up all speeches. The motion for the debate is given three weeks in advance of each round. Pupils do their own research on the topics but teachers help with speech writing. We hosted round one in St. Michael’s last year. The Junior team (Jennifer Nolan, Mary Kate Reilly & Molly Holder) made it through three rounds to the All Ireland Semi-Final - the last 16 in Ireland from over 100 teams. The senior team made it to the same stage the previous year.
Website
Students are encouraged to participate in English debating in St.Michaels. The main competition that we focus our attention on is the Concern Debates. As part of this competition, students debate a range of motions on themes such as global justice, sustainability and environmental conservation.
Our debating teams tend to be students from fifth year but we are always open to the idea of younger students getting involved. We have been involved in a number of other competitions such as Leinster Schools where we have been represented by students from Transition Year.
We had a very successful year in 2022/23. Our Concern Debates team made it to the last 32 of the competition which started with 175 schools. We also received the award for best new school in this year's competition. The members of the debating team collected their award on stage at the final in The Helix in DCU.