Mace Debating 2010!

Dear followers,
As you may or may not know I'm a pretty keen debater. So on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon myself and three other friends headed to Mount Sackville to participate in their annual mace debate. You may be wondering what the hell a mace debate is, well it is where you go, your giving your motion(what your going to debate about) and have fifteen minutes to write a five minute speech! It was my first time so I was really nervous! The first motion was "That this house will Impose Capital Punishment", and my partner and I had to say yes, bring back the death penalty. It was a tough one but the next one was the worst "That this house Believes that the X-Factor is a Tainted Brand" and we had to say that no its not a tainted brand! This was going against my beliefs and the fact that I don't even watch made it worse but sure enough we survived! On Saturday our first debate was "That this house will Ban All Violent Video Games". We has to say yes ban these video games so it was not to bad. The last one we debated on before the semi-finals was "That this house will Abolish Remission for Good Behaviour" this means stop all prisoners from getting out early on the grounds of good behaviour. We were opposing this motion and it was a pretty tough one.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the finals but did stay to 'watch and learn' as they say! The semi-final debate motion was "This house Believes that in a Two Part State Solution for Israel". It was a very interesting one to watch and  the final debate which was one of the best was "This house will Bring forward a National Government for Ireland" (one big coalition of all the parties). It was a great debate and I learned loads. I offer my congratulations the Casltenock Community College team A who got First place. They well deserved it.

Overall they were a great two days and I learned so much and made loads of new people. I really enjoyed it and would love to do it again!

Thank You,
Talk soon,
Roisin.P.