Lorcan Tiernan, Union President 2016

My Fellow Past Men,

I am delighted to serve as your President of the Castleknock College Union for 2016, and as January has drawn to a close I want to take this opportunity to update you on events planned for the year.

It's a busy schedule, commencing with the Annual Retreat, as always, in the College on Good Friday, the 25th March. A note of special thanks here to Billy Gallagher, class '61, for this will be Billy's fifteenth year as retreat lead organiser.

This is quickly followed by the Business Lunch on Friday the 8th April in The Ballsbridge Hotel. Last year some 350 past men and guests attended what proved to be a great day and your generosity raised €5,016 for good causes. This year our guest speaker is former Taoiseach John Bruton, and what with the centenary anniversary of the “Rising”, a general election year and Brexit looming large on the horizon, expect some informative insights from John over the course of a fine lunch.

It is the social highlight of our calendar and I would encourage you all to once again support this year’s lunch.

April 25th sees us return to the College for a special event marking the anniversary of the 1916 Rising. This will take the form of a Debate and reception thereafter. As the evenings lengthen our summer Golf Outing is planned for Hermitage Golf Club July 16th. Other events include the Veterans Tennis tournament and the Tag Rugby Blitz. The year will be rounded off by the Annual Dinner. Provisional calendar is outlined below and more details will follow closer to the time.

Also as some of you may be aware, the College Centenary Roll was published in the 1935 Chronicle. It captured the origins and dates of attendance of all pupils at the College for the first 100 years of its existence. This work was undertaken by the Vincentian Fathers, and the Union is now working with the College to digitise that and all years since. The final result, Castleknock College Roll 1835 - 2015, will shortly be made available to all past men.

Finally on behalf of the Committee, I would like to thank you for your continued support of the Union and all of its activities and I look forward to catching up with many of you throughout 2016.

Best wishes,
Lorcan

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