New York-bound Kells legal eagles in plea for sponsorship

The Eureka Secondary School students in Kells who won the national Mock Trial Competition in Dublin earlier this year are due to travel to New York on 19th October to represent Ireland in the 5th International Empire Mock Trial Competition. As New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world, the team is looking for sponsorship to help pay for flights and accommodation in the city during their stay. The Kells girls who will be competing against 35 teams from around the world are Aoife Cosgrove, Sophie Tevlin, Ruth O'Reilly, Niamh Flattery, Judith Burke, Nicole Lam, Claire McGinty, Aileen Flood, Katie Meegan, Rachel Tobin, Aine Bennett, Deirdre Lynch, Niamh Lindsay and Lisa Conroy. Some of the top legal minds in the country were extremely impressed by the performance of the Kells students when they took the top prize in the National Mock Trial Competition last May. The Kells students emerged victorious at the finals, which took place in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin. Mr Justice Peter Kelly and two of his colleagues acted as judges for the final. The Kells students had been prepared for the competition by Anne Dolan, a solicitor with AB O'Reilly Dolan & Co, Solicitors, Cootehill, Co Cavan, and were sponsored by the Meath Solicitors' Bar Association. The Kells girls were all transition year students at Eureka and they won their way through to the finals against tough competition from all around the country, beating Alexandra College, Milltown, Dublin, to win the final. As well as the team award, two of the Eureka students won the joint top prize for best performance. The Harry Hill prize is usually presented to the best overall performance each year, but the judges could not decide between Ruth O'Reilly and Aoife Cosgrave and awarded them the prize jointly. Kells team member, Katey Cosgrove, took second place in the country in the associated TV reporter competition. The Kells team consists of two 'barristers', a 'solicitor' and four 'witnesses', a court official as well as TV reporter, television reporter, photographer and court artist. The barristers were played by Aoife Cosgrave and Sophie Tevlin, while Claire McGinty was the solicitor and the witnesses were Ruth O'Reilly, Niamh Flattery, Judith Burke and Hannah Meagher. Nicole Lam was the court official, while Aileen Flood was the newspaper reporter, Katie Meegan the television reporter, Lisa Conroy the photographer and Niamh Lindsay was the court artist.