The staff of Douglas Community School are organised a table quiz in the South County in Douglas on Wednesday night, 27 January. The quiz was originally in aid of their partner school, an orphanage in Uganda, but 50% of funds raised will now go to Medicins Sans Frontieres in Haiti.

Douglas Community School has a long history of participation in the Exhibition, with many category winners over the years, and the award for best overall individual project a few years ago.  Every year the school is by far the best represented of boys schools in Cork City and County.  This year 20 students entered  the competition and seven were selected to participate in the exhibition.  Stephen O’Sullivan, Luke O’Leary and Eoin Conroy of NS3 studied the possibility of using Catnip as an insect repellant, while their colleagues in third year Otto Cronje and Daniel Leahy investigated the flammability of various materials after treatment with different washing powders.  Kevin Twomey and Padraig Wilson McCarthy worked hard on an interesting experiment to optimise the extraction of DNA from plant tissue for the mandatory Leaving Certificate Biology experiment.  The students worked very hard in the weeks coming up to the Exhibition and reaped the benefits with the enjoyable and successful week in Dublin.

To find out more about the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition visit http://www.btyoungscientist.ie/.

Douglas Community School athletes finished their 2009 Cross-Country season with some more outstanding performances at the All-Ireland Uneven Ages Cross-Country Championships held at the University of Ulster Coleraine recently. First into action was the u13 team in the boy’s 1200m race. There was chaos at the start of this race resulting in our six-man team left standing on the line while all the others took off before the gun. The team chased courageously but could not make up the ground. Jack O’ Mahony finished a great 40^th and Liam Harris 51^st considering the start. Other great runs came from Rory Casey, Stephen Cotter, Rory Barry and Luke Varian. Next into action was the u15 team racing over 20000m. Eoin Bourke led them home with a superb 16^th place finish and he was ably assisted by Billy Murphy 43^rd and other super runs from John Durcan, Brendan Couch, Alan Ring and Jamie O’ Connell. The team came a very creditable 6^th.

All-Ireland u13-u19 Cross-Country Coleraine, December 2009.

In the u17 4000m Patrick Coleman made their intentions clear from the gun where he joined a group of 9 runners who broke away from the rest of the field. Patrick kept in touch with the leaders but couldn’t stay with them on the last hill. He raced to a great 6^th place and behind him the team was battling hard to retain their All-Ireland title. They were missing there 4^th and 5^th scorers in Ian Tobin (13^th u16 All-Ireland) and Emmet Bracken (14^th u16 All-Ireland) but all the others really stepped up when it counted. Conor Foley had his greatest race of the season finishing 46^th and other great runs came from Jamie Sullivan, Rob O’ Neill and David Kelly. In the end the team took a fantastic 1^st place. In the boys u19 6000m race there proved to be heartbreak stuff for the team losing out on the bronze medals by just 1 point. Peter Hanrahan had an off day leading them home in 34^th place and he was followed by great runs from Alan O’ Brien 39^th and Adam Kelleher 44^th.

Steven Macklin

Students from the school choir were invited to perform Christmas carols in St Luke’s Nursing Home, Mahon, and St Finbarr’s Hospital, Douglas, in the week before Christmas. We were warmly welcomed in both, where we sang traditional carols, as well as a few more modern Christmas hits. Students from first to fifth year took part, spreading the Christmas cheer. We have received an open invitation from both St Luke’s and St Finbarr’s to perform again, and hope to do so in the coming months.

C. O Conaill

Douglas Community School athletes took part in the Cork Schools Invitational Cross-Country event recently. The event was held at the Midleton CBS grounds and the school had a very successful day. Although the school were missing a lot of their athletes due to the All-Ireland Championships taking place in Derry, they performed brilliantly. The first year boys’ team won the team title led home by Alan Horgan 5^th, Kevin Horan 6^th, Fionn Bracken 9^th and Fintan Cadogan 16^th. Other great performances came from Colm Daly, Seamus Hogan, Declan O’ Herlihy and Denis Moore. The second/third year boys race was held over 2000m and here the team came a great third led by Daniel Mason, Eric O’ Neill and Conor Cronin. Other great runs came from Karl Horgan and Adam Dalton. Finally Douglas Community School had one competitor in the combined fourth/fifth/sixth year 3000m race and here Ian Tobin had a superb win. Well done to all the athletes on some superb performances.

Steven Macklin