Late judge remembered at essay competition ceremony
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Terry O’Neill and Michele Mellotte, President of the Midland Bar Association, with David O’Shea, Marist College, Athlone, who was highly commended in the Gráinne O’Neill Memorial Essay Competition.Image 2 of 2
Terry O’Neill and Michele Mellotte, President of the Midland Bar Association, with Martha McSharry from Our Lady’s Bower second prize winner of the Gráinne O’Neill Memorial Essay Competition.The late Judge Gráinne O’Neill was commemorated at an awards ceremony in Athlone District Courthouse recently.
The event was a prize-giving for the second annual Grainne O’Neill Memorial Essay Competition, open to all schools in Westmeath and Offaly.
The title for this year's competition was ‘The Role the Irish Legal System plays in Protecting Teenagers from Online Trolling and Online Bullying’.
Athlone native Gráinne O’Neill became the youngest judge in Ireland when she was appointed to the District Court bench in 2014, aged 42, but sadly passed away in 2018 after an illness.
The prize winners, were, as follows: 1st: Aisling Cotter, Killina Presentation School, Rahan; 2nd: Martha McSharry, Our Lady’s Bower, Athlone; Joint 3rd Prize: Fatima Karimi, Tullamore College and Hannah Walsh, The Sacred Heart School, Tullamore. Highly Commended: David O’Shea, The Marist College, Athlone
The awards ceremony was attended by the late Judge O'Neill's father, Terry, and by a large gathering from the legal community including Circuit Court judge Keenan Johnson and judges Patricia Cronin, Deirdre Gearty, Bernadette Owens and Karen Fergus and the President of the Midland Bar Association Michele Mellotte.
The adjudicating panel comprised Peter Jones, State Solicitor, Judge Rosemary Horgan and Dr Bernadette Ni Aingleis, Associate Professor of the Institute of Education at DCU.