NUI Galway sports scholarships awarded to 14 Galway students

Galway students accounted for half of the student sport scholarships which were presented by NUI Galway at a ceremony in the university.

NUI Galway Vice President for the Student Experience, Dr Pat Morgan, presented 28 athletes with NUI Galway Student Sports Scholarships, 14 of whom are from the city and county. The new recipients bring to 94 athletes in 18 different sports that are supported by the NUI Galway scheme.

This year’s ceremony also saw the Performance Points Sports Scholarship awarded to seven athletes, with all but one coming from Galway. The scheme provides 40 additional points to those earned in the Leaving Certificate for elite athletes, for academic courses over 350 entry points.

The Performance Points winners were swimmer David O’Sullivan from Kingston; Gaelic Football starts Olivia Divilly from Ballinasloe and Enda Tierney from Oughterard; rugby players Peter Claffey and Marc Kelly, who both hail from Portumna; and soccer player Lisa Casserly from Ballinderreen. The seventh Performance Point recipient was Eoin O’Donoghue, a Gaelic football player from Mayo.

Of the 14 sports scholarships, 10 were awarded to students from the city, with four going to students from Renmore: Richard Bennett (rowing),Evan Boyce (soccer), Malcolm Hanley (rugby) and Aidan Kinneen (rowing) .

Niall Whelan from Market Street in the city centre was awarded a scholarship for soccer; Stephen O’Brien from Bushypark was awarded a scholarship for basketball and Dangan’s Liam Keane was awarded a rowing scholarship; while golfer Colm Hughes (Knocknacarra), soccer star Sean Gavin (Carragh Hill) and waterpolo player Keelan Ward (Salthill) were also awarded scholarships.

The other four scholarships which went to Galway students were camogie star Ailish O’Reilly (Maree); Gaelic footballers Damien Comer (Claregalway) and Michael Daly (Ballinasloe); and volleyball player Paul Holohan (Loughrea).

“I would like to congratulate the recipients of this year’s awards and remind them of the honour of representing the University and we hope they will aspire to even greater successes such as those achieved by the recent scholarship holders in hurling, camogie, rowing, rugby and swimming who have reached the pinnacle of their sports,” said Dr Morgan.