Kinsale students urged to aid society and be active

TRAVEL the world, take a year out, but do come home as you’re our future. 

That was the message delivered by Drimoleague native Seán O’Driscoll, chairman and chief executive of Glen Dimplex, to students at this year’s Kinsale Community School’s awards ceremony. 

Nearly 600 students andparents attended the event to honour the achievements of its students in a variety of areas.  

Mr O’Driscoll said he was enormously impressed by the diversity of achievers across a variety of areas and congratulated all the students in attendance. He appealed to students to acknowledge the contributions and the sacrifices made by their parents and teachers. 

And he appealed to award winners to mentor those who had not reached their full potential.  

During his address, Mr O’Driscoll spoke many words of inspiration and stated that ‘life is a journey … and the future is full of opportunity … It is much more of an exciting life when you can create your own future … live in the future and not in the past ... and remember the impossible is always possible’.  He also advised students to ‘have your moral compass with you at all times’.  

Mr O’Driscoll appealed to students: ‘Give back to your school and to your community. Remember who you are and where you have come from. Do travel the world, take a year out, travel for work and live abroad for a while; but do come home, because you are our future and you are the leaders of our community and our country in the future’.  

Mr O’Driscoll’s visit to KCS was also marked with an unveiling of a plaque on the Kinsale Community School Wall of Fame.

Acting deputy principal Jean Gaffney was MC for the evening, which saw students receive awards for a host of achievements and activities, ranging from Year awards to Sporting awards to Academic awards.  Pupils from the Leaving Certificate class of 2017 were honoured for their outstanding results with the Senior Academic Award being presented jointly to Adam Higgins and Morgane Kenneally and the top Leaving Certificate Applied award going to Lily Carpenter. The Junior Certificate Academic Award was presented to Cian Murphy.