A ball on the beach: Secondary school graduates mark the milestone on their own terms

You can never be overdressed or overeducated, according to Oscar Wilde — and one bunch of recent secondary school graduates seem to have taken that lesson to heart. 

They each have more than a dozen years' education clocked up as they finished secondary school, but due to Covid restrictions there can't be debs balls and formal graduation parties. So they decided to have their own 'grads ball' in the wild Atlantic air. 

The teens have just recently graduated from Ashton Secondary School on Blackrock Road in Cork city. 

Michael O'Connor is one of the rather dapper students who opted to mark the milestone with style. 

"A bunch of us were going camping at Allihies anyway so we said we might as well have our own graduation celebrations — this is the only chance we'll get so that's what we did," he said.

They looked after the 'catering' themselves — cooked at their tents and mobile homes — and brought their own tunes. 

"We're all going our different ways now so it was great to do that. Some are going to college and some of us are taking a gap year as we just don't know what kind of experience we'd have at college anyway. I'm going to work for a year and look at college next year," he explained.

A typical 'life lesson' or mantra issued to new graduates is to 'Get up, dress up, show up and never give up' and it's like they're ticking all the boxes on those counts.