Maynooth, DIT revisit triumph, heartbreak

NUI Maynooth edged past Dublin Institute of Technology in a cliffhanger of an RTE/Irish Times Challenging Times final last Tuesday.

Maynooth became the first college to win three Challenging Times titles, having won the first two competitions in the early 1990s. For DIT, it was a particularly disappointing defeat, having put in a fine performance without reward for the second time in as many years. Two of DIT's team were also on the team that went down to UCD in last year's final - Temple Bar photography student Ronan O'Keeffe and Bolton Street geomatics student Brendan Dunne. They were joined this year by Imelda Graham, who studies strategy in Aungier Street.

The trio put in a performance worthy of champions; their loss had as much to do with bad luck as with their answering power.

They went ahead at the start of the contest, answering 11 out of the first 12 questions put to them to go 55-0 up. Maynooth answered 10 of the next 12 to come back to within five points. The contest ebbed and flowed for the rest of the final - DIT were 10 points up one-third of the way through, but after the second third it was Maynooth who were leading by that margin, largely thanks to theology and English student Declan O'Donnell: the Drumcollogher, Co Limerick, man answered five opening questions in a row for Maynooth on everything from the Clare senior hurling championship to the work of French playwrights.

DIT went back in the lead at the start of the last third of the final, and looked as if they were on their way to victory when Maynooth made a last-minute comeback to win by the breadth of an opening question, thanks to quick-fire answering by the aforementioned O'Donnell and his team-mates, Thomas Byrne from Bagnalstown, Co Carlow, and Sean Kelleher from Ballyfermot in Dublin.

At the end of a competition involving 30 colleges and universities and 14 weeks of televised rounds, it all came down to who got to the buzzer quickest to answer the final question. It was an especially evenly matched final, with all six competitors answering opening questions for their teams. Current affairs seemed to be the only blind spot for the otherwise very impressive finalists - no one could tell Kevin Myers the name of the IFA president (Tom Parlon) or of Charlie Bird and George Lee's book on the NIB scandal (Breaking the Bank).

However, on any other subject, whether it be the Roman Empire or the Macarena, the five men and one woman in the final were outstanding. They all went away with Tipperary Cut Glass Crystal mementos, presented by Louis O'Neill, chief executive and group managing director of The Irish Times. NUI Maynooth were also awarded £2,000 to spend on college facilities.