St Mary’s Alumni recently presented four £1000 bursaries to the top performing A Level students in their subjects. During the presentation lunch the students met with the donors and gained a valuable insight into their career path. Past pupil Danny Moore, founder of Options IT, also attended and gave some great advice to the students before they start university.
Br Lynam Award
Br Lynam was one of the great mathematicians within the Christian Brothers and taught in St Mary’s for many years. He is fondly remembered by all his pupils in whom he instilled his love of maths.
This award was presented to Alen Shaiju who is going to QUB to study Aerospace Engineering.
The Tracey Family Award
The Tracey family have a long association with St Mary’s and sponsored the bursary for the top performing A-level physics student. Dan Tracey is a past pupil who taught in both Barrack Street and Glen Road. His son Colm is also a past pupil and studied engineering at Queen’s before launching a successful career. Colm has worked in Japan, USA and is currently based in Waterford where he founded Eishtec in 2009.
This award was presented to Fintan Moreland who will study Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Ulster University Magee campus in Derry.
Larkin Cassidy Law Bursary
The Larkin Cassidy Award has been made possible thanks to the generous contribution from one of Belfast’s leading law firms – Larkin Cassidy Solicitors at Carlisle Circus in Belfast. It is designed to reward outstanding performance at A-Level and to encourage the pursuit of law to degree level.
This award was presented to Garrett Tolan, who is going to study Law with Politics at QUB, by Larkin Cassidy’s senior partner Sinéad Larkin.
The Tanglewood Games Computing Excellence Bursary
Terence Burns is a past pupil of St Mary’s. After his studies Terence worked at Ubisoft and Epic Games where he worked on technology and many games, including Fortnite, Gears of War, and Driver. He then spent five years as a tech lead on Hogwarts Legacy before cofounding his own studio Tanglewood to work on AAA games.
This award was presented to Conor Connolly, the top performing computing student. He will study Mechanical Engineering at QUB.
We are very grateful to the donors for their generosity in providing these bursaries, which will be of great assistance to these students as they embark on their university studies.
