The Cross and Passion College debate team was formed from Transition Year students early on in October, comprising of Abigail Coates, Áine Budds, Eve McMahon, Katelyn Hegarty-Kelly, Alice O’ Toole, Rhiannon Kelly, Róisín Robinson and Molly Gervin.
Since then, Cross and Passion has partaken in two debates as part of the first round of the Rigbey Jones debating league. The team formed for this particular series of debate is comprised of Abigail Coates, Róisín Robinson and Molly Gervin. The first debate was held in St Mary’s secondary school in Naas, and the motion was “Charity begins at home”. The team from Cross and Passion was opposing the motion while Patrician’s Brother School was proposing the motion. The team won by using the argument that “charity does not begin at home, it begins where it is needed most” to argue what was debatably the more difficult side of the motion. Molly talked about the root of the phrase “charity begins at home”, the selfishness involved in it and its damage to one’s psyche. Abigail discussed the facts and statistics in relation to the topic that showed the need for worldwide compassion. Roisin drew attention the idea of home, and those charitable people who do not have one. The PBS boys were fantastic, with very well thought-out and presented topics and we were glad of a good debate between us, but in the end CPC won by unanimous vote from all three adjudicators. The motion for the second debate on the 21st of October was that “This House believes in a zero tolerance approach to anti-social behaviour”. Cross and Passion was, once again, opposing the motion. This time the debate was held in the Gaelcoláiste in Naas, and we were debating against the students from this school. This time, our team’s token line was “we do not live in a world of black or white; we live in a world of colour”. We used this line to argue the points of second chances, the reasoning behind antisocial behaviour, the human tradition of forgiveness, etc. The team from the Gaelcoláíste argued what appeared this time the harder side of the motion extremely well so that our team were not sure of ourselves, but once again the win was to us in the end, although this time it was by a two to one vote from the judges rather than a unanimous decision. On the 18th of November CPC were proposing the motion that “This House moves to abolish single-sex schools”, while St Mary’s were opposing. This time the debate was held in Cross and Passion. The CPC team was composed of Laura Quigley, Abigail Coates and Róisín Robinson. Sadly on this occasion the Cross and Passion team lost to St Mary’s, who themselves presented excellent points and well deserved their win. We were absolutely delighted with our first two wins and are currently still waiting to find out if we will be going through, as both the Cross and Passion team and the St Mary’s team both have two wins. Now the points have to be done up from all three debates to determine who will carry on, and results of this are still pending. (Written by Molly Gervin) Comments are closed.
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