The Year 10 Gaelic Football team are the new Ulster Champions. St Louis beat a highly fancied St Patrick's Downpatrick 6-8 to 1-7 in the final played at Carryduff on Saturday (8th March).

In the group stages we beat St Louis Kilkeel, La Salle Belfast and Loreto Coleraine. In difficult conditions the boys saw off Knock in the quarter final. In the semi final it was La Salle and a tightly contested game.

The fantastic performance in the final and the hard work put in during the season were the key factors in this Ulster title.

This year we raised a total of £11,000 from our October Mission Month Fundraising activities.  It has become a school tradition, with the pupils and staff getting involved in a wide range of fund raising activities.  It gives the pupils a terrific opportunity to learn Christian values as part of our school community.

The funds raised will be distributed among a wide range of charities.  The breakdown of the funds is decided by the school council, which is made up of the class captains.

Last year Louise McAleese and Shannon Graham received camogie All-Stars.  This season they were again honoured by the selection committee along with a third St Louis camog, Katie McAleese.

On the hurling front Michael Devlin was selected on the BT Ulster Colleges team.  While in football Aidan McKee and Colum Duffin were selected on the Antrim Year 12 All-Star team.

In December the staff and pupils of St Louis put on a superb production of the musical “Anything Goes”. It was the culmination of many months’ dedication and preparation. The cast performed to a packed hall for four nights. All those involved deserve much credit for a very professional production.

Every year teams of four or five lower sixth students from schools all over Northern Ireland work in partnership with local companies to solve real-life engineering problems. St Louis teams have worked with local company Michelin Tyre PLC for a number of years.

This year's team consisted of Ashleigh Best, David Duffin, Katrina Lynch and Ciaran McKinley. In October the team, with teacher Mrs Tovey, met with our link engineer, Alex Scott, from Michelin and he outlined the problem we needed to solve. We were to ensure safe disposal of used filter elements which are used to purify the boiler water.  Following this we visited the site to see for ourselves and had many brainstorming and research sessions after school. During a residential workshop in December at Queen's University, we designed and built a working model of our system. After Christmas we refined the system and submitted a report to a panel of judges. On 19th April we took the model to Queen's to present our project to the judges so that they could ask questions. The team are eligible on completion for a Gold Crest Award and they have a much deeper insight into what professional engineers actually do.

Three Upper sixth girls from St. Louis’ Grammar School, Ballymena were Runners-up in the National final of the Business and Professional Women’s Public Speaking competition which took place in Moreton Hall School, Oswestry, Shropshire on the last weekend of March. Having won the regional competition in Ballymena in November, the three girls, Anna O’Kane, Aine Ryan and Mary-Pauline Mc Guckian went on to win the Northern Ireland final sponsored by B.T. in Belfast in January. Anna O’ Kane also won the trophy for Best speaker at the final.

 The U.K. final, on 30March in Oswestry, brought together 6 teams – one from each of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and three teams from England. The St. Louis’ topic was ‘The Scandal of Africa’ in which Anna O’ Kane dealt incisively  with the effect of international aid on Africa and the responsibility that African political leaders, in particular, and the international community in general, must take to ensure effective distribution of this aid.

In March 2005 the St. Louis’ team were overall U.K. winners with their presentation on ‘The Value of the European Union’. This time amid very stiff opposition particularly from the winning team, the St.Louis’ Girls were very happy to bring the Runners-up salver to Ballymena . In addition Mary-Pauline Mc Guckian won the  trophy for the Best Overall Proposer of thanks. The winners and runners-up also received monetary prizes.

In 2006 the overall winners were Kilkeel High School, Co. Down and with the St. Louis’ success again this year, it is certainly worth noting that the Northern Ireland teams can compete ( and win ) at the highest levels ‘across the water’. 

Well done to our U18 Soccer team and their coach Mr John Sexton on winning the Northern Ireland Cup.

St Louis last won this title in 1989 and we are very proud of everyone involved in this latest success.

The winning squad will now travel to Leeds in September courtesy of competition sponsors Carnegie.

Congratulations to pupils Shannon Graham and Louis McAleese who were recently awarded Ulster College All-Stars.

The girls then presented Ulster in the Inter Provincial championship where they were beaten in the final.

This caps off a fine season as they were part of the St Louis team who won the Ulster title.