2007 Press Releases

UCC Climb to 4th in World Universities Debating Rankings
21.08.2007

Following the recent European Universities Debating Championships, University College Cork (UCC) has climbed to 4th in the newly released world rankings, behind only the illustrious institutions of Oxford University, Cambridge University and the University of St Andrews.

This was helped in no small part by one of the teams from UCC making the Grand Final live on Turkish national television.
 
The contingent from UCC recently returned from Istanbul following the European Universities Debating Championships. Both the Law and Philosophical societies sent 8-person strong delegations (consisting of 3 teams and two judges) to the Championships.
 
The Championships were among the largest on record, with 168 teams competing from across Europe. The teams battled through seven grueling preliminary rounds of debating with a view to acquiring one of the 16 elusive spots in the quarter-finals. With both Oxford and Cambridge increasing the size of their delegations this year, competition was even tougher than usual.
 
At the end of the seven preliminary rounds, the competitors and judges were brought for a night cruise on the River Bosphorous where the announcements as to who had progressed to the latter stages were made.
 
Of the 16 breaking teams seven were from Irish institutions, and even more positively five of those were teams from UCC:
 
Breaking 3rd was the team of Derek Lande & Derek  Doyle
UCC Philosophical Society
Breaking 8th was the team of Paul Flynn & Conor O'Brien
UCC Philosophical Society
Breaking 11th was the team of Ross Frenett & Diarmuid Early
UCC Philosophical Society  
Breaking 12th was the team of Art Ward & Tiernan Fitzgibbon
UCC Law Society
Breaking 13th was the team of Stephen Nolan & Daniel P McCarthy                                                                                          
UCC Law Society

In addition to these teams, all four adjudicators progressed to the latter stages: Ms Alanna Landers, Ms Deirdre Milner, Mr Luke Harris & Mr Daniel Gleeson. In the history of the Championships no single University has ever been so successful in a single year.
 
Two of the five teams (Lande & Doyle and Ward & Fitzgibbon) were eliminated at the quarter-final stage while two more survived until the cut-throat semi-finals (Flynn & O'Brien and Frenett & Early).
 
One team, however, reached the Grand Final of the Championships (Nolan & McCarthy). They faced incredibly tough opposition, in the form of World Championships semi-finalists St Andrews and the top speaker in Europe (and second best in the World) Mr. Sam Block from Cambridge. The team of Block & Robertson from the University of Cambridge eventually emerged victorious after an incredibly hard fought debate on the motion "That this house believes states should publish deliberate untruths in times of war".
 
This unprecedented success has not only helped to raise the profile of UCC further in the global debating community but has served to bolster confidence in the reputations of both of these societies as they prepare to host the 29th World Universities Debating Championships here in 2008/09. It is hoped that with continued support these institutions can help to push UCC into the extremely prestigious top 3 in the coming years.

Picture shows:  UCC versus Oxford.  Left to right: Paul Flynn, Stephen Nolan, Daniel P McCarthy.

501MMcS



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