Dalriada - the best in the UK '˜bar' none!

Not content with scooping the BBC Radio Ulster School Choir of the Year competition last week, the Ballymoney school has just won the Bar National Mock Trial Competition.

Beating off 209 other schools from throughout the UK to take the title at the Old Bailey in London at the weekend,

Having won the Northern Ireland heats in November, extensive practice and fund raising has taken place.

Under the careful management of Miss Susan Gregg and technical support of two members of the Bar Council of NI, Craig Dunford BL and Lynn McMullan BL, the team has worked tirelessly in the run up to the National Final.

Saturday saw Dalriada come through three rounds against some very tough English opposition to win their place in the final.

In the first round they came up against Denbigh High school from Oxford followed by Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School from Nottingham and then in the third round they were up against Clitheroe Royal Grammar School from Preston.

The standard throughout these rounds was extremely high but it was the Northern Irish School that were awarded a place in the final, alongside Wilmslow High School from Preston in Lancashire.

The Final was presided over by four Judges, with the celebrity ‘Judge Rinder’ watching carefully from the balcony.

It was Dalriada that came out the winners much to the delight of the entire party including Headmaster Tom Skelton who had travelled to London with the group.

It was Dalriada’s fourth time competing at National level, where twice they have narrowly lost out in the final, but this time they were finally crowned champions.

With some of the team also involved in last week’s BBC choir of the Year win it has been an epic few months for the school competing at the

highest level in a number of activities.

Just last weekend the school choir beat off competition from Carrickfergus Grammar and Newbridge Integrated College, Loughbrickland, to win the Senior category of BBC Radio Ulster’s School Choir of the Year.