BCH v. Belvedere Debate (Joseph)

 Today we had a debate against Belvedere after school, and the topic was whether this house would dismantle the monarchy. Belvedere was the proposition, and BC High was the opposition. I was a member of the debate team and I spoke third during the debate. We had all previously done several sessions of prep work and drafting speeches, so we certainly knew our topics and points well and were ready to speak. I was still very nervous to speak because I had never done a debate with an audience before, and it was also our first experience with the Irish debate format. The debate relied less on statistics and facts and more about philosophical and logical reasoning, and we also had to answer questions during our speeches from the opposing team, which was different than debating in America. Everyone made good points and had strong reasoning to back up their claims, but Belvedere was more experienced and came out as the team winner. However, Declan Madden from our team was declared the best speaker, which shows how our team still performed well. We all got feedback from Belvedere students about how we did in our speeches, and overall, the experience was great and it was interesting to hear everyone’s arguments.