TY Academic Prize

Last night in the Big Schoolroom we had our annual Academic Prize Presentation evening by the Transition Year, judged by Professor Brian McGing of TCD. The winner was Aoife Kenny on 'Rock and Roll in the 1950s'. Two other presentations were by Rebecca Feeeney-Barry on nuclear power in Ireland, and Joseph Millar on World War I, the Easter Rising and the College.

From the English perspective, Jane Quigley gave an interesting presentation on the life and influence of J.D. Salinger, discussing in particular his unbringing and his experiences in World War II. The traumas and distress he suffered there seem to have had profound and lasting effects on his work, especially of course his only novel The Catcher in the Rye, which the Transition Year studied last term as part of their course, and which continues to be avidly read by teenagers more than 50 years after its first publication.