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IRELAND’S TOP YOUNG debaters will take part in a major competition this weekend in the hope of being crowned the Best Speaker in Ireland.
Eighty students have been chosen from 500 applicants to participate in the Matheson Junior Debating National Mace.
For the intense competition, pupils form teams of two and participate in four debates per day.
Once a motion is released, they have just 20 minutes to prepare their arguments. The speakers are awarded both team and individual points – but it is the individual ones that really count.
When the Mace whittles the group down to just eight people, the Grand Final will commence.
National Finals Day will also see winners of The Speech competition announced.
Founder of the competition, Catherine Duplaa told TheJournal.ie that she set up the second part of the day to cater for more students.
“I think that debating is a really important skill to develop as it encourages young people not only to voice an opinion but have an intelligent, reasoned and well articulated one. I also understand that it isn’t for everyone and it was with that in mind the ‘The Speech’ was developed.”
The Speech asked students from First to Sixth Year to choose any speech from a movie, TV show or history and perform it for the camera.
There will be winners in both the senior and junior categories, as well as an overall pick.
Who gets your vote?
Darragh is a First Year student from Lucan Community College. His speech is from “The Kings Speech”. (Teacher: Ms Celine Phibbs)
Jessica is a First Year student from Coláiste na hInse in Bettystown. Her speech is “Why I Hate School But Love Education” by Suli Breaks.
Alex is a First Year student from Lucan Community College. Her speech is from “The Hunger Games”. (Teacher Ms. Celine Phibbs)
Oisin is a TY student who has been involved in debating a number of years and has won the prestigious Junior Debating Competition hosted by the L&H and LawSoc in UCD. His speech is Panti’s Noble Call.
Aaron is also a TY student. He has never been involved in debating but has a great interest in acting and was recently involved in his school’s musical performance of Footloose. His speech is from The Wolf of Wall Street.
Nathan is a Sixth Year student. He has successfully debated at both Junior and Senior level. His speech is from V for Vendetta.
Which of the speeches is your favourite?
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Am I wrong in not voting given a great speaker is born out of a cause and not out of a competition on who speaks better than the other?
Yes, you are wrong. Great speakers aren’t born. Some of the greatest speakers of our times learned that oratory is a skill to be practiced and perfected. Martin Luther King perfected his skills as a pastor before he entered the national stage. Rory O’Neill (the author of one of the speeches above) spent years as a performer honing his craft. Kennedy used to stand in front of a mirror for hours and practice. Also worth bearing in mind that Kennedy spoke someone else’s words too: Ted Sorensen, his speech writer. Is the impact of “Let them come to Berlin” lessened because he asked Sorensen to figure out why the Gettysburg address was so powerful and recreate it for him? Was his call to ask not what your country can do for you less important because he didn’t write the words?
Great speakers work at their craft. This competition, as part of a larger and extremely commendable competition encouraging young people to engage with and debate important issues, is the first step for many of these children on a path to having a voice of their own and maybe, when their important moment comes along, having the tools to articulate an important point in an eloquent and well practiced way.
Im not dis-encouraging practice. Merely acting is not practice nor does it encourage engagement of important issues. Hollywood will tell you that one.
Why not hold the same competition but you have to give a speech on a current issue in Irish society?
Did you read the article? That’s the main competition. This is just a way of encouraging kids into debating so that they can, in future, debate issues regarding Irish society.
Oratory is a skill distinct from speech writing. They are two different things. Obama and JFK both use and used speech writers respectively. Does that make them bad orators? Of course not! To suggest it did would be ridiculous.
Of course I read the article.Why do you not stick to your original example of Martin Luther King? He wrote his own speeches including his famous ‘I have a dream speech’. The best way to get people interested in reform, politics, social issues is for people to have a cause. Notice how actors stay in acting and people like Martin Luther King get into civil rights. Now there are exceptions like when Ronald Reagen got into politics after a successful acting career, and not surprisingly he was a terrible president – http://www.examiner.com/article/ronald-reagan-began-us-government-deficit-spending-addiction
You’re missing the two fundamental points here:
1. Oratory and speech writing are two different things. Some people can do both.
2. You have to run before you can walk. First teach them to speak in public and speak well. Give them the voice and then, when they have the skills, let them use those skills to engage in issues they care about and to help change things for the better.
Those skills are the ones being used this Saturday in the main competition finals about topics that affect Irish society and beyond and are part of a commendable teaching process that will, hopefully, breed a whole generation of people able to articulately engage in public debate
So what problem is there with changing the competition to where you have to give a speech on a current issue in Irish society as opposed to any speech from a movie, TV show or history?
Regardless of your opinion of the format of the competition your negative comments should not take away from students who are as young as 12 years of age having the passion, initiative and drive to research famous and inspiring speeches and then orchestrating the shooting and editing of these videos themselves. That takes creativity, intelligence and confidence to put themselves out into the digital world. These children should be commended and filled with pride for all they have achieved. As I have two students in the competition I know first-hand the research, preparation, time and effort that has gone into this competition and I believe they deserve some recognition for this.
You go Ms Phibbs!!!!!!!!!
It’s the speech that they choose, it’s the speeches that they listened to in their research that they didn’t choose. It’s broadening the mind and listening to what the world has said and is saying and then forming an opinion. This is about building their foundations. That’s what teaching is about. It breads the confidence and knowledge with the view that one day maybe one of the kids here will voice their opinions in the way that the great people would have formed their great speeches! That may be on a local level, nationwide level or a global level. It’s about educating……
Yes you are wrong, it’s a competition not a moment in history! Look at the diversity of the speeches, it’s encouraging to see the confidence and open minds at such a young age.
Explain to me how acting opens the mind? They are acting roles where the plot has already been written. We need creativity not repetition.
Why not hold the same competition but you have to give a speech on a current issue in Irish society?
See above – that is effectively the main competition. In fact the main competition is even more challenging given that the kids have far less time to prepare so if you want them to rise to the occasion and develop arguments under pressure on current issues – not just in Irish society but globally – that’s a pretty good opportunity for them to do so.
Obviously that isn’t for everyone – being asked to speak for 5 minutes after only 20 minutes preparation can be terrifying and The Speech allows kids who might be interested in debating but are too nervous to throw themselves in the deep end a chance to get a taste for public speaking before venturing into the big leagues, as it were.
I loved doing debating in school, but the intensity of it all definitely put a lot of people off who would have got a lot out of a competition like The Speech.
On an aside I think this attitude of “sure the kids are taking an interest in co-curricular activities but what MORE can they do? MAKE IT HARDER! DOWN WITH ANY ELEMENT OF FUN!” is extremely negative. The finalists (and I’m sure other participants but I haven’t seen their entries) are to be commended for some really decent oratory, it’s not easy.
Is this further x-factorisation? instead of kids starting up a band, learning how to play instruments and writing songs, playing for a few mates first before building an audience, circumvent all that for a mass audience singing someone elses song for instant stardom. This is similar. Copy someone elses passion, someone elses eloquent words. This would be a great competition if the kids were asked to pick a subject that they feel strongly about ( maybe even in a group), and deliver a speech on it. They could include as many references to whatever songs / books / tv or movies that they love.. THE format is very x-factor..very superficial..I’d like to think we could have more confidence in our kids to do something better..
Two things. As the article states, this competition is a sub part of a national debating where 500 young people debate on global issues with 20 mins to prepare for each debate. This is the competition that you seem to be appealing for but never read the article fully to find out that it also exists.
This ‘speech’competition (I say as a teacher of pupils who have participated in both) reaches out to those who don’t feel comfortable in that environment and gets them research, practice, deliver, shoot and edit a famous speech. I can certainly vouch for it as a worthwhile exercise.
And second. If you listen to Oisin’s speech for example you’ll hear someone fully engaged with a prominent international issue. It shows more than just a robbing of someone else’s passion, it shows the beginning of a new passion for themselves.
You are involved here so obviously best placed to judge its merit. I take back my doubt. I wish you and all involved well in this. I applaud anything that gets young people engaged in global issues.
This suggests that we are back to a voting competition on “The Speech”….. Would I be right? Or is the winner to be decided by a panel as originally suggested?
The final winners are judged by an adjudication panel on Saturday.
You go miss phibbs!!!!
Why all the American accents?
I watched the video by Oisin of Panti’s Noble Call and while the deliver is solid I was disappointed that the speech was edited.
Specifically, I think that Panti’s speech is a perfect example of how swearing can effectively be used to powerfully convey meaning and emotion, in other words to persuade.
It is exceptionally rare that swearing is an effective rhetorical tool, but that speech is one such case, and it is a little ironic that the speaker to it upon himself to act as editor and remove it.
I’m not attacking the speaker, I understand how the decision could have been made, but that doesn’t make it right.
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