Reporting by Finian O'Neill (6th Year)
The day began with a 7:27am departure from Tullamore Train station bound for Galway Ceannt Station. While our train was delayed considerably, we arrived only slightly later than expected in Galway and made our way to the University of Galway’s Arts and Science Building. We were greeted by the event organiser who showed us to the lecture room and proceeded with an ice breaker: a walking debate. This involved those for, against and unsure to stand in different parts of the room depending on their viewpoint.
The topic of debate was “Would you arrest Santa Claus”, and while the majority disagreed with the motion, only one agreed and was forced to defend their point, which essentially ended in a tie breaker.
Following this, we were introduced to many aspects of debating, including the procedure of making an opening statement, hearing others points, and retorting those points. Tips and pointers like never pre-preparing a retort to an argument and using personal experience to lend credence to a passionate speech will likely prove useful in January, when the Model UN is set to take place in UG.
The next activity was a more formal debate on the question of “Should Galway be the new capital of Ireland”. For this, we were assigned to be for or against the motion and told to assemble in groups of three, with this debate becoming our first real taste of how passionate a debate could become.
After a break, we were taught more on the purpose and functioning of the United Nations, including the etiquette surrounding POI’s, the lobbying and voting process and the creation of resolutions. To put this knowledge into practice, a final debate was organised, the circumstances were simple:
“Michael D.Higgins had kidnapped the secretary general of the UN, and was demanding that the UN HQ be moved to Galway and that Dublin be destroyed by a nuclear bomb”. After being assigned our countries to represent, we were tasked with drafting a resolution to pass the UN in response to this crisis.
Ultimately the British resolution won after a tiebreaker with the North Korean, Chinese and Russian resolution.
After a quick visit the Christmas fair in Eyre square, we left Galway Ceannt for Tullamore, all of us excited and anticipating the Model UN conference in January.
A big thanks to Ms. O’Brien and University of Galway for making this event possible and here’s best of luck to all participating in January!