St Mary’s answer call to win TCH quiz final

IT was a knife-edge battle of wits when two secondary schools went head-to-head in the final of the Thomas Crosbie Holdings All-Ireland Schools Quiz yesterday.

St Mary’s College, Knockbeg, Co Carlow, were just eight points ahead of Coláiste and Spioraid Naoimh, Bishopstown, Cork, at the end.

The contest, in which almost 1,000 students and 150 teacher coaches were involved, was broadcast live last night on RTÉ Radio.

The knock-out competition, sponsored by Apple in association with RTÉ, began last November with 163 schools from 28 counties all competing for the top prize of an Apple iCart mobile classroom.

In addition to the iCart, there was a runner-up prize of an Apple eMac computer and an iPod Nano for each of the finalists — all valued at more than €20,000.

And organiser, Barry Woods, ensured the TCH perpetual trophy was gleaming before it was presented to St Mary’s College team captain, Pat Moloney.

The trophy is called the Andrew Quinlan Memorial Trophy. He captained the Christian Brothers College Cork team that won the former Irish Examiner Munster Schools Quiz in 1996. He died in a car accident later that year.

Andrew’s parents Brendan and Mary have been at every national final of the reinvented TCH quiz to present the trophy.

About 3,500 questions were asked during the competition but the finalists believed some of the toughest were posed yesterday by quizmaster Alf McCarthy.

St Mary’s principal Cyril Hughes said the questions were more difficult and felt that was reflected in the winning team’s final score of 82, down from an average of 106.

“The team put in an enormous amount of work for the competition. They are very well-read guys now,” he said.

And teacher Anthony Malone, who travelled with the team from Spioraid Naoimh, said it was great that the team performed so well. It was the first time the school made it beyond the quarter-finals.

RTÉ director for radio, Adrian Moynes, agreed the questions were very difficult but, he said, even when the answers were wrong some of the team members made intelligent guesses.

TCH group marketing manager, Colin Walsh, thanked all the schools who took part and added that the competition would not be possible without the tireless work from the TCH team led by Mr Woods.