Mairead O’Regan, 1st Year, Law Plus, writes about her experience of participating in the recent Silken Thomas Moot Court Competition:
“The Silken Thomas Moot Court Competition in Maynooth Univeristy is an inter-varsity competition that has both national and international teams entering each year. It took place this year over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of April.
The Moot Court Convenor was a man named Conor Duff who left no stone unturned in creating a well thought out Supreme Court criminal law scenario, mostly on the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person, Act 1997, but also lots of other interesting topics like the law on evidence and Articles from the ECHR.
The written submissions were both very interesting and complicated but I was well aided by my mooting partner Croistoir Hasty, four lecturers and my criminal law tutorial tutor to name just a few of the people who gave us help and support.
When we arrived on the Friday evening we were given a key to our rooms before the first moot started. The accommodation building was like something out of a Harry Potter novel. I did not know that I would have to share a room but as I did I was well pleased that I had been partnered with such a nice and patient lady, an AIT law student.
Round one was at 6.30pm. I was very impressed with Croistoir who came up with an interesting argument on the law of evidence, pulling in three different pieces of legislation which both initially stumped and impressed the first Judge we came across in the oral part of the moot. This Judge, a practicing barrister, was a very tough judge who gave us a run for our money, so we were delighted to have been deemed the winners of that round, against a well versed UCC team.
Round two started about 7.30pm, and after that we all went for drinks at a cocktail bar where we got to meet the other teams and where I got to network with other mature students from MU.
After breakfast we had two more rounds and the semi-finalists were drawn, we were not called but it was no surprise because the competition was very tough. The winners were from UCD and I was very pleased because after our moot against them that morning the lead speaker had said to me that he was impressed with our written submissions, and told me that he was going to, ‘borrow’ some ideas from them.
After the final we were bused to Barberstown Castle for the Gala dinner. The food was like nothing I had ever tasted or had seen before, it was so beautifully presented. It was worth entering the competition for that experience alone.
Overall, the competition was a great experience and I believe that every law student should have a go at a mooting competition at some point of their university education.”
