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DEBATING

On Thursday 16th November 2017 the Royal Schools’ Debate again the opposition. We were over the moon to hear that
took place. This annual event was inaugurated in 2008 to we had won, and progressed to the finals, the furthest the
celebrate 400 years of the Royal Schools. Royal School Cavan has ever gotten.
Each year, one of our 5 Royal Schools hosts the event and this Debaters and teachers were all treated to refreshments
year, the Enniskillen Royal Grammar School welcomed The prior to the final.
Royal School Armagh, The Royal School Cavan, The Royal The final motion was revealed at the start of the tea break so
and Prior School Raphoe and The Royal School Dungannon.
our teams had only 20 minutes to prepare our final motion,
Upon arrival, we were met with delicious food and snacks in which the topic was whether taking part was more
and welcoming smiles. important than winning and everyone in the audience was
struck by the quality of the arguments presented.
After we had been briefed by our Chairpersons, we
commenced a night of three rounds of diverse and The judges were very impressed with the confidence,
challenging motions. knowledge and articulation of all of the speakers and
deliberated at length to reach their decisions.
Our first debate was against last year’s winners, the Royal
School Dungannon, where our topic was controversial To our dismay, the Enniskillen Royal Grammar School were
historical monuments, in which we were the opposition. awarded the Harry West Public Speaking Cup at the end of
the night.
Despite our nervousness, and the fact that we had never
done anything like this before, our speeches were delivered All in all, this was an enjoyable and inspiring experience.
with assertiveness and poise, and we were delighted when We learned new skills and met so many lovely people, but
we were announced the winners. most importantly, we had fun. We were honoured to have
represented our school in this competition and look forward
We then debated against the Royal School Armagh on the
topic of tourism helping the environment, where we were to this event again in the future.

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