EVENTS REPORTS

The 5 School Gala Dinner took place in the Herbert Park Hotel in Ballsbridge on Friday 6th February.This event is now in its 6th year and 210 people attended the event.A drinks reception kicked off proceedings with the 5th and 6th year St.Michael’s band giving us a few tunes. All 5 Union Presidents were in attendance.The event has been in the Herbert Park for the last 3 years and once again they delivered an excellent meal and each table started the evening with a surprise Applegreen fuel voucher compliments of Mr.Joe Barrett.We had numerous raffle prizes the most interesting being a Dunmore East Whale watching day which was won by Fr.Cormac O’Brolchain.

We had 3 Auction items on the night in a painting kindly donated and painted by Paul Christopher Flynn(Templeogue College 1980) titled Pentecost;First light, we also had a signed Leinster jersey by a number of the current team and lastly tickets to the Quarter final,Semi final and Final of the European Rugby Champions Cup.

Money raised on the night exceeded 10k and the proceeds will be split between the 5 Transition Year boys of each school for projects and Fr.Richard Olin of SPIRASI and other social outreach programmes.

We also had a guest speaker on the night in Gerry Donnelly from Northern Ireland who is a regular on the speakers circuit and he produced some interesting and humorous stories on the night

All in all the night went extremely well and special thanks to the committee of Stephen Tracey(St.Mary’s)Sean O’Farrell and Neil McKenna(St.Michael’s)Joe Barrett(Rockwell)Brendan Toolan(Templeogue) and David Coen(Blackrock) for putting in the effort in delivering an action packed evening.

This is now a regular event on all 5 Union calendars and well supported by the schools and Principals also.The event is growing every year and we hope for 250 at the event next year.