Posted: 04 April 2006
The drama in Cork and the talk in Berlin: UCD student societies’ recent wins
UCD Dramsoc has won the two top accolades in the recent Irish Student Drama Awards (ISDA) 2006 in Cork. Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, one of UCD’s two submissions to the festival, took Best Overall Production and Best Director (for Simon Ashe-Browne and Steven Jones).
Europeans Debating
It’s the second year running the society has scooped the top awards; last year Dramsoc was named National Society of the Year after hosting and winning the most prestigious award at the 2005 ISDA. This year the society gained a total of 12 nominations and won three other awards in the categories of Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Costumes and Make-up.
The ISDA festival is Ireland’s largest amateur theatre festival, and hosts over 20 productions from every Irish university and many Institutes of Technology. It is also one of the longest-running theatre festivals in Ireland, and has even developed its own fringe event.
Three UCD debating teams reached the quarter-finals of last month’s European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC) in Berlin, the second-largest annual debating event in the world. A UCD Law Society team broke into fourth place in a competition which saw 400 students from all over Europe engage in verbal contests on major issues in current affairs.
Two UCD L&H Society teams placed eighth and 16th, and UCD’s Ciaran Lawlor, a former Worlds Convenor, adjudicated in the final debate. The results place UCD’s three successful teams in the top 10 % of Europe’s student debaters.
Oxford University was the overall winner of EUDC 2006. Last year’s competition was held in Cork and was won by a team from Rotterdam’s Erasmus University.