Belvedere Times

Who Needs Belvo When You Can Go To Oxford?

Ian Fahey, Debater

Okay, it was pretty damn amazing to be honest. Walking down the cobbled stone streets of Oxford and discovering little nooks and crannies in the alleyways that, somehow, ended up in another historical part of the campus, was quite extraordinary.

Of course the two Belvedere lads were trying their best to blend into the atmosphere and scenery but it is quite hard to do so when you are trying to think of a way to stop any funding towards animal welfare organisations. Confused? Let’s start at the beginning!

Four weeks previous to the day, Ian Fahey (SS) and Mark A Kelly (SF) wandered into Loreto on the Green in the hope of qualifying as one of three Irish teams for the Mayor Brown Oxford Union Mace Debating Competition. Nobody had qualified for this event from Belvedere College before and, if I’m being honest, I don’t think that even we were expecting to do so. Johnny Byrne (SS) and Owen Killian (SA) had qualified for the Junior Oxford Mace two years ago while Oisin Peat (PX) and Kevin Millar (RK) made the journey as part of the Cambridge Union Mace last year.

After sitting through a rather painful workshop about the kind of style that the Oxford College students liked, our hopes of qualifying for the event seemed dashed at the sight of previous Leinster Senior winners and other notable partnerships from Blackrock and Loreto Foxrock. At this point, both Belvedere teams seemed happy to just do their best to get a decent result.

The day itself would consist of two motions and the top three teams would qualify for Oxford in four weeks time. Notepads were ready; pens in hand; team position noted…. and the motions??

- Banning alcohol and tobacco products…easy enough!

- Providing developmental aid to dictatorships…ouch!

Fifteen minutes to prepare a five minute speech is quite a hard thing to do as you can imagine!  However, we were willing to give it our best shot.

Two hours later we emerged from Loreto on the Green dazed and confused. We had just qualified First out of twenty-eight Irish schools. We had knocked out some leading debating hopefuls and had our tickets for Oxford. I think that both of us, while we were happy, were both a bit nervous that we were going to be demolished in Oxford.

WHO CARES!!! WE WERE GOING TO OXFORD!!!! Phil Hogan’s wallet was going to take a substantial hit.

Four weeks later and we stepped into the Oxford Union Building open – mouthed and with widened eyes. Chandeliers and luxurious mahogany furniture. Deadly! We had a fair idea that we were not going to progress far in the competition but we were just happy to be there to be honest.

English debaters are almost certainly one of the best of their kind. Crisp blazers, clean-shaven, perfectly groomed – not to mention the royalty halo that seemed to fill the room with that sense of awe. One of the interesting facts about the building that we were in was that it had held historic debates between former Prime Ministers and notably famous politicians. Luxury was at its peak!!

Motions. The most terrifying part of the day… and that showed!

• Banning Private Schools

• Reducing Copyright Terms from 70 years after the death of its author to 10 years after its publication date…. I know!

• A Government Requiring a Majority in a Referendum before starting a Non-Defensive War.

And finally, the worst of them all:

• Removing Charitable Status from all Organisations Dedicated to Animal Welfare.

Although these were quite difficult motions, we thought that we would have a decent amount of time to write down our ideas – however, we misjudged that whole concept of the competition. We had to walk through the streets of Oxford to find our location and be expected to start once we entered the room. Bizarre or what?

At the end of the day, we performed out of our skin and managed to get one 4^th place; two 3^rd places, and a 2^nd place. We were thrilled!!

Overall, Oxford was one of the most fascinating places to be in. Both the scenery and the whole town were full of historical buildings and it almost felt like you had walked into a Harry Potter movie!  (Yes, I know it was filmed there).

The very best of luck to Barry Maguire, Oisin Galvin, Ken Donnelly and James Doyle who all qualified for the Junior Oxford Mace…that is – if the ash is gone!