LIMERICK’S great new shining hope for the London Olympics in 2012, scooped another triumph when she received the results of her Leaving Certificate examination on Wednesday.
Five days ago, Grainne Murphy, the 17-year-old Castletroy College student spectacularly scooped silver for Ireland in the 1,500 metre freestyle of the European Swimming championships in Budapest. Yesterday she received her exam results.
Due to her demanding training schedule the college has allowed her to sit her Leaving Cert over two years.
Said principal Martin Wallace: said that as a full-time swimmer, Grainne “wouldn’t be winning medals at the European Championship otherwise – it is important that we accommodated her here from the beginning.
“The school is very proud of her achievements at the competition. I remember when she arrived in here as a 13-year-old, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. She has come so far it is incredible and a lot of credit is due to her coach Ronald Claes and UL”.
Two years ago in an exclusive interview with the then 15-year-old swimming talent from Castletroy, Grainne told this newspaper that she didn’t watch much TV.
:”As for other subjects at school, the one I’m mainly interested in is German,” she said at the time.
Just before going to Press on Wednesday, her mother, Mary confirmed that her daughter was on her way to collect her results.
“She won’t open the envelope until she gets home but I’d say she will be pleased – we’re delighted and very proud of her winning silver in Budapest.”
Pleased, overall with this year;s exam results, Castletroy College principal, Martin Wallace acknowledged their good performance in maths and science. He said that economic changes have led to changes in student choices for third level.
“We’re seeing a lot more students going towards the arts and hoping to specialise afterwards,”.
One very pleased principal is Michael Cregan of Laurel Hill Secondary School.
“We did fantastically well overall and I think we had over double the national average of students with over 500 points,” he said..
High achievers at Laurel Hill included Rachel McNamara from Raheen who got 7 A’s and Caherdavin’s Jean Ryan who scored 590 points.
“These are some of the best results we’ve had in years and that is down to the hard work of the teachers and students here in the school,” said Mr Cregan..
Jamie Brislane of Clareview, who scored 600 points, was the star performer at Villiers School in what principal Thomas Hardy described as an incredible year.
“Congratulations to Jamie and the rest of the students as this is probably the best set of results we have ever had in Villiers”.
