{"id":238033,"date":"2026-01-10T15:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T15:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238033\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T15:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T15:45:11","slug":"ucc-and-kings-inns-come-out-tops-in-first-irish-times-debate-semi-finals-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238033\/","title":{"rendered":"UCC and Kings Inns come out tops in first Irish Times debate semi-finals \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first finalists in the annual Irish Times debate<\/a> have been confirmed as Tara Kennedy and Joyce O\u2019Sullivan from University College Cork<\/a>\u2019s Law Society, while the winning individual progressing from Friday night\u2019s semi-final is Eoin Ryan from King\u2019s Inns. <\/p>\n

The competition, now in its 66th year, took place at UCC and was chaired by Irish Examiner sports journalist Michael Moynihan.<\/p>\n

Four teams and four individuals representing societies from University College Dublin<\/a>, UCC, King\u2019s Inns and the Solicitors\u2019 Apprentice Debating Society of Ireland (SADSI) debated the motion that \u201cthis House Believes GAA<\/a> Exceptionalism is Unjustified in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teams speaking in favour were Tom Carolan and Morogh O\u2019Flaherty, as well as Abigail McNamara and Julia Hurley, both representing UCD\u2019s Literary and Historical Society. The individual speakers were Tailte McSparron, from UCC\u2019s Philosophy Society, and Conn \u00d3 Cl\u00e9irigh for UCD\u2019s Archaeology Society. <\/p>\n

Speaking against the motion were Patrick McIntyre and Eoin Ryan, from King\u2019s Inns, and Ms Kennedy and Ms O\u2019Sullivan from the UCC Law Society. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe winning individual progressing from this evening’s debate in UCC is Eoin Ryan from King’s Inns. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney\/Provision <\/p>\n

The individual speakers were Grace Given and John Gilhooly, both representing SADSI.<\/p>\n

The convenor of the debate was Ciara McLoughlin while the adjudicators were Irish Times GAA correspondent Se\u00e1n Moran, who was the individual winner of The Irish Times debate in 1981.<\/p>\n

Also adjudicating were Judge Helen Boyle \u2013 a team winner in 1996; legal counsel with Origin Enterprises Aaron Vickery, a team champion in 2016; and Sandi Ndebele, who served as a convenor in 2020 and is now a principal engineer at Eli Lilly.<\/p>\n

The prize for the winning team is the Demosthenes Trophy, by renowned sculptor Oisin Kelly. <\/p>\n

The winning individual speaker is awarded the Christina Murphy Memorial Trophy. They will also be invited to go on a debating tour of the United States hosted by Pax Rhetorica. <\/p>\n

The winning teams and individuals from the four semi-finals will debate in the 66th final next month. <\/p>\n

The Irish Times competition, which began in 1960, is an all-island debating championship for third-level students. Previous finalists include former presidents Michael D Higgins and Mary Robinson, and broadcaster Marian Finucane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first finalists in the annual Irish Times debate have been confirmed as Tara Kennedy and Joyce O\u2019Sullivan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80,84498,13354,39935],"class_list":["post-238033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology","tag-the-irish-times","tag-university-college-cork-ucc","tag-university-college-dublin-ucd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}