An epic battle

The 2009 Concern Debates semi-finals took place in All Hallows College in Drumcondra last Wednesday night.

Packed to the gills

In the first of our epic semi-finals, Mean Scoil Mhuire Longford took on Gort Community School. Both teams brought heaps of supporters along and the rooms were packed to the gills.

Things got underway shortly after 7pm. The motion being debated was: "Western interventions are exacerbating the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Africa."

Clever acronyms

Mean Scoil Mhuire proposed the motion, using the letters A, I, D and S to tie their argument together. Gort Community School countered with L, I, F and E. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find my pen so I couldn’t take any notes and have forgotten what the letters stand for!

Once the judges retired to make their decision, the open forum was ably chaired by Graham Murtagh from Ard Scoil Ris. I’m sure, though, that he and the timekeeper Brian O’Ruairc of Sandford Park were wishing they could be in the other room cheering on their schools. The open forum was a heated affair with great contributions from the audience and from the participating teams.

A close call

We witnessed a very close debate. It had been well-researched and was delivered in a very polished manner. There was plenty of refutation and rebuttal and evidence of lots of team work. I was really glad I didn’t have to judge this one!

Who won? What happened in the other semi-final? Find out in the next post.