Joyous scenes at St Pat's
New principal starts at Cavan school
Last Friday was bittersweet for Christopher Rowley, the former Principal at St Patrick's College. Now retired, he was present at the Cavan Town secondary school to welcome and participate in the celebratory atmosphere that accompanied his last Leaving Certificate class getting their results.
“I've seen these lads grow to become confident and capable young men since the first day they came in here,” says Mr Rowley, with a distinct note pride in his voice.
He stresses that the strength of the results is always a “team effort”- between students and faculty alike.
Mr Rowley says of the results: “I've had a brief look over them and they look really good. There are some outstanding, of course, but the interesting thing is the students you might consider in the middle who are, it seems, doing really, really well. We're all delighted for them. It was a good year, certainly.”
He concludes: “That was my last Leaving Cert class. When you've worked with these lads for five or six years you wouldn't miss the big day. Now I'm moving on, the new principal Séan [Stack] is at the helm, and I'm sure good things will continue at St Pat's.”
New school principal, Mr Stack, noted that a number of students in last year's Leaving Cert class achieved in excess of 600 points and said, “Right across the board we are delighted and proud of the entire Leaving Certificate cohort.”
High hopes
Oisin Reilly from Butlersbridge is ecstatic. He earned 565 points in his exams and has high hopes of going on to study Engineering at TU Dublin, Bolton Street.
“Very happy,” says a relieved Oisin, who looked up his results at home with his family, and most importantly shared them with his proud grandparents, before travelling to the school to celebrate with his former classmates.
“It was a long year, a long two years even,” he admits, but says the work he put in was “worth it” to get the results.
“It was definitely a relief. The portal was open early. Grandparents are very happy, parents are very happy, everyone was very happy.”
Jorden Alex from Cavan Town got 554 points. He hopes to go on to study Optometry in the UK and went the UCAS route as well as filling out his CAO forms.
Regardless of what path he takes, Jorden is fully focused on achieving a career in health science.
“I applied for Manchester. I was one grade off so I am going to get that rechecked, but overall I'm really happy with my results. I put in the work, but whatever I get is what I get. I accept it regardless. If I don't go to the UK I'll hopefully do Optometry through TUD, or Occupational Therapy, maybe Cork or Limerick. I definitely had a plan. Something to do with health science.”
For that level of preparedness Jorden credits the teaching and career guidance provided at St Patrick's College. “It all pin pointed to health science, they helped me figure out the UCAS system, I definitely wouldn't be here without their help. I'm very thankful for that.”