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

Kathy Hynes, NUI Galway Clubs Sports Officer, manages the scholarship scheme: “The support the students receive from these scholarships is designed to maintain their academic and sporting progress. It is very rewarding to support athletes from a range of sports in their academic and athletic endeavour to achieve in both areas the best they can be.”

This year’s recipients represent some of the finest young women’s talent in Irish sport today including Lisa Casserly, a member of the Irish U19 International Women’s soccer team, and Olivia Divilly, who has represented her club Kilkerrin Clonberne at county minor and senior level and is considered one of the brightest stars in women’s Gaelic football. Also receiving a scholarship was Emer Fogarty who is continuing to progress up the inter-county and college sporting ladder, Ailish O’Reilly, a leading light in the camogie circuit as an All-star won the All-Ireland senior camogie final in 2013, and Edel McMahon, Connacht and Women’s Irish Rugby interprovincial representative panel.

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