Cork Wins Young Scientist Award Again

18th Jan 2010

Cork in Young Scientist Victory

Readers of this column may sometimes giggle when we bang on about Cork's position as the dominant intellectual and educational powerhouse of this island but the evidence is as overwhelming as a midnight flick of switch at the dam in Inniscarra. It's no joke because it just keeps on coming.

Richard O'Shea from Blarney wins this year's All-Ireland BT Young Scientist Competition

The latest proof of Cork's phenomenal stock of highly educated students was splashed all over our TV screens last Friday as Richard O'Shea from Blarney was crowned the 2010 BT Young Scientist at the RDS in Dublin: the minor All-Ireland championship of scientific endeavour. Congratulations to the young genius and the hard-working science teachers at Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál!

O'Shea's ingenious engineering produced a bio-mass cooking stove that eliminates smoke thus reducing the health risks of smoke inhalation when used indoors. In other words, when knocking up some grub for the family you're not going to get an obligatory starter course of intoxicating fumes and an unwanted layer of cough-spit on the main course.

As if this wasn't enough the Blarney brainbox then revealed that his design could be constructed almost cost-free from tin cans or clay. His design plans will be used by Trocaire in the Third World to teach people how to construct the stoves - unbelievably half the world's population use this type of cooking device so three billion pairs of lungs could be thanking a clever Corkman for his fantastic innovation.

Cork's strangle-hold on the Young Scientist title has shown anyone doubting the character of the county's youth that there's nothing to be worried about.

Clearly, suspicions that the post-Celtic Tiger generation may not be as upstanding or as hard-working as previous generations are misplaced. Next time you see some young Corkonian's heard buried in a snazzy-looking phone don't necessarily assume they are updating their Bebo with some irrelevant nonsense.

He or she may be texting their friends with the latest results from the Hadron Collider in Switzerland or writing some clever piece of software to help control their own hormones and reduce their unpredictable mood swings and irrationality.

Aside from his practical grasp of science Comrade O'Shea is clearly the kind of young Rebel that ticks the satisfaction box of any proud Corkonian.

Kinsale Community School were victorious last year.

His articulate, straight-up no bullshit manner should be bottled and sold to those who have obfuscated modern discourse. PR companies, spin-doctors and politicians would do well to listen to how the island's young intelligentsia relate to the world - a sample of Cork's young scientists would help them cut the guff and get to the point.

In an interview before he won his award O'Shea reduces his invention purpose to it's basics and cuts to the chase with his description. When cooking indoors with a bios-mass stove you run the risk of choking on smoke but with his stove you "basically…you don't die". Brilliant!

CORK CONTROL
In case you thought last year's winners had faded into obscurity it's worth mentioning that Kinsale Community School students John D. O'Callaghan and Liam McCarthy's inventiveness in measuring the Somatic cell count in milk eventually won them the 2009 European Young Scientist Award.

Similar to Richard's straight-up style the Ballymartle boys were encouragingly confident, concise and witty in their media interviews - their dead-pan "ball-hops" even out-foxing experienced broadcasters like Ryan Tubridy - a cause to gladden the heart of any Cork man or woman.

Since then they've been picking up more international patents for their design than sliothars from the turf when they tog out for their local hurling team - undoubtedly another bunch of Corkonians set to change the world.

Incidentally, Aisling Judge, now a sixth-year in the same school, won the same award just four years ago. The young and brilliant biologist invented a simple kit to test food for the acid that bad bacteria produce (so you don't get the gawks when you give the slightly smelly chicken sandwich you left in the fridge the benefit of the doubt).

As with the headlines the county's students command over the leaving cert results every August the influence of Cork's young scientists goes on and on but this page can only fit a limited amount of self-congratulation and backslapping every week so we can't mention every winner.

Aisling Judge from Kinsale wins in 2006

With such dominance by Cork's up-and-coming scientists isn't it time that the Dublin government stopped fooling themselves into thinking that the Pale and its abhorrent gun-crime is the most appropriate place to host the Young Scientist Award?

Surely with such academic dominance by the Rebel County and much safer crime-statistics the exhibition should be moved here permanently to acknowledge the origin of the never-ending font of scientific endeavour that flows from Leeside.

SCIENCE Vs SLAVERY
Finally, the so-called 'Knowledge Economy' that the government was talking up in the late-nineties was, in reality, being wholly compromised by the lure of young students to the construction industry.

This economic short-sightedness meant that many school-leavers were avoiding third-level training and going straight into, largely unskilled, employment. The vast majority of those unfortunate pawns are now unemployed and cannot contribute to the science industry because they lack the training that companies considering setting up in this state require their employees to have.

Despite Cork keeping the flag flying Ireland is now struggling to become the scientific-Mecca that was once envisaged as it plays catch-up and worries more about keeping bankers in jobs than making sure that beacons of hope like O'Shea, O'Callaghan, McCarthy and Judge are wrapped in cotton wool for the state's ultimate long-term benefit.

With Cork winning two-titles back to back the inevitable three-in-a-row is now being talked about in science labs across the county. Looking at the rate of success in the last four years we're backing Cork's hard-working young inventors to win the treble!


Let Richard tell you about his invention himself:
http://www.youtube.com/btyoungscientists#p/u/4/Bmi-I6B2tC0