Paul’s Young Scientist triumph celebrated by Raheny college

LAST month, St Paul’s College, Raheny, held a special ceremony to honour the fantastic achievement of one of its students winning the overall 2014 BT Young Scientist & Technology Award.

Paul Clarke beat off thousands of entries from all over the country to win the prestigious prize at the much-celebrated event in the RDS.

Paul took home the top award for his project entitled ëContributions to cyclic graph theory’.

As part of his prize, he was selected to represent Ireland at the 26th European Union Young Scientist competition which took place in September.

In that competition, Paul came joint second for the same project that won him the national prize.

Local Senator Feargal Quinn paid a special visit to St Paul’s to pay tribute to the young student and to perform the official unveiling of a specially commissioned plaque to commemorate Paul’s achievement.

The permanent plaque in the school bears the motto ëGestis Censere’ ñ ëBy your deeds you will be judged’.

Paul’s parents, Des and Anne, his close relatives, teaching and secretarial staff, members of the Vincentian community and the school’s board of management attended the ceremony.

Speaking during the celebrations, Senator Quinn said Paul was a credit to his family, the school and the entire nation.

Business teacher at St Paul’s, Celine McGuinness, said Paul’s achievement would never be forgotten at the college.

“This plaque will serve as an inspiration for all future pupils who grace the hallowed corridors of Paul’s alma mater,” said Ms McGuinness.

The entire school came on board to celebrate Paul’s win with teachers and students from the school’s art and music departments kept very busy leading up to the event.

Paul will sit his Leaving Certificate exams in 2015, after which he plans to go on to study pure mathematics at Cambridge University.

Meanwhile, the 51st BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition is set to break new records, with 2,077 project ideas submitted in October by 4,616 students.

And letters have been winging their way to schools across the island to break the news about which students have qualified for the exhibition, which takes place at the RDS from January 7-10.