Cork City Centre Transport Arrangements

Since Thursday, August 9, private cars and trucks have been re-routed away from St Patrick’s Street between 3.00pm and 6.30pm.

During this 3.5 hour period, access to St. Patrick’s St is limited to buses, taxis, emergency vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.

The changes to traffic flow in Cork are due to exciting developments in the city. Cork city centre will soon have over 10,000 additional new jobs, 5,000 over the next three years and our traffic management system needs to be updated if we are to keep the city and its growing workforce moving.

Cork City Council would like to advise motorists to be aware of these new routes when travelling from work, collecting children from school, visiting the city centre to shop or socialise.

The re-introduction of the bus priority corridor is accompanied by a series of ' Super 7' measures to improve and encourage access to the city centre:

* Bus Eireann has reduced bus fares in Cork's Red Urban Zone to just €1 after 2pm every day with a Leap Card from August 9th to September 15

* The Park And Ride service has been extended with additional stops at Merchants Quay, St Patrick’s St, Grand Parade and South Mall to improve connectivity between the Park and Ride and city centre.

* A network of 26 free 15-minute set down parking spaces has been established on South Mall, Grand Parade, Parnell Place, Drawbridge & Cornmarket St to facilitate shoppers and visitors.

* From August 9, half price parking is being offered at Paul Street and North Main Street Car Parks from 1pm to 6.30pm.

* The opening hours of the city’s Park And Ride service will be extended to between 7am and 8pm.

* The Park And Ride will be free of charge from 12 noon

* Passengers on the northbound 203 and 215 buses will also be stopping on St. Patrick’s St. for the first time.

A considerable body of engineering work has already been completed by Cork City Council on the city quays to facilitate the changes which are limited to St. Patrick’s Street only. Traffic signals have been changed so that traffic is moving faster. Even in the short period in which the changes operated in March/April last, bus journey times showed decreases of up 28% and car journey times in the city centre also showed significant improvements.

The new traffic arrangements will allow the city’s buses to transport people in the city centre much more quickly and efficiently. Last year, 12.6 million people used city bus services and St. Patrick’s St. is the main public transport “hub” with almost 1,000 buses using the street each day.

The changes due to take place on St. Patrick’s St. are a small but important step towards the establishment of a rapid transit system linking Ballincollig and Mahon, via the city centre, including the Docklands.

The bus priority corridor is a key element in the City Centre Movement Strategy (CCMS) which seeks to address the serious traffic management issues associated with welcome economic growth.

Traffic congestion in Cork is now worse than it was at the height of the economic boom in 2007. Two thirds of the 110,000 vehicles entering the city centre every day are using it as a “through route” to other destinations. This through traffic brings no benefit to businesses in the city and makes it more difficult for those who work, visit and shop in the city centre to get around.

TY Students – Win a trip to the European Parliament

Attached information about a competition to win a trip to accompany Seán Kelly MEP to Brussels and learn more about the European Parliament and the work of the EU institutions.

Conor Morey - sports star of the month

PBC student Conor Morey was awarded Sports Star of the month by the Echo and actually broke 11s for the 100m.

Conor is also competing in the U/18 European championships in Gyor Hungary July 3/9.

He was also part of the U/20 Ireland 4x100 relay team that ran in Mannheim Germany last week , setting a new U/20 National record and getting the Qualification standard for the world U/20 championships . 

Conor will travel with the Ireland team  to compete in the world U/20 Athletics championships in Tampere Finland July 11-15. 

Pres GAA Players with Cork

There was extra interest over the weekend in Cork inter county matches due to the involvement of Pres students with Cork teams.

On Saturday night, Briain Murphy played for Cork u20 footballers in their Munster championship win over Tipperary.

On Sunday, Ethan Twomey and Cian O’Donovan were part of the Cork minor hurlers team that defeated Waterford in their last championship match of the summer.

Ethan and Cian had also played in previous Cork minor matches earlier in their Munster campaign.

All three students played Senior Schools GAA with PBC during the school year.

Second consecutive title for PBC

Congratulations to our Senior boys relay team who won the 4 X 100m relay competition in the All Ireland Schools Outdoor Championships on June 2nd. The team of Conor Morey, Colin Doyle, Daniel Hurley and Andrew Geaney O'Brien took the exciting final in a time of 44.14 seconds. This is the second consecutive year that PBC have taken the title.

State exam timetables 2018

Junior Certificate

State exam Timetable

Leaving Certificate

State exam Timetable

Summer Exam Timetables 2018

Please find below exam timetables for Summer 2018:

1st, 2nd & 5th Year

Summer 2018 Timetables

View Timetable

4th Year

Summer 2018 Timetables

View Timetable

Irish School National Interpro’s Swimming Championship

At the recent Irish School National Interpro’s swimming championship PBC relay team won silver and bronze medals for their two relays.

The medley team of Sean O’Herlihy on backstroke, Michael O’Sullivan on breaststroke, Paul Higgins on Butterfly and Evan McArdle on Freestyle was narrowly defeated by Methodist College, Belfast for the gold medal, while holding off rivals CBC Cork for the silver.

In the freestyle relay the team of Evan McArdle, Jude Malley, Sean O’Herlihy and Paul Higgins were out touched by Methodist College and CBC to get an excellent bronze medal, while holding off strong challenges particularly from Blackrock and Tenure Colleges in a very exciting race.

The team handled themselves excellently and swam superbly. They did the school proud.

Also Paul Higgins added two individual gold medals in the 100meter Freestyle and Butterfly.

Many thanks to Ray McArdle for managing the relay team poolside on the day and for the parents of the pupils who made the trip to the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin.

Well done all.

Mr. Casey

CANSAT Ireland 2018

During our transition year our team of six students Jamie McNulty, Liam Rooke, Hamza Idrees, Ibrahim Salih, Masroor Salam, and Farzaan Zulquernain, along with our teachers Dr.Meiklejohn and Mr Lehane we embarked on our Cansat journey to compete for a place in the national CANSAT Ireland 2018 competition.

CANSAT is a simulation of a real satellite, within the volume and shape of a soft drink can. The challenge for the students is to fit all the major subsystems found in a satellite, such as power, sensors and a communication system.

During our weeks of working together as a group on this project we learned more about the real life applications of physics by applying our knowledge of electricity and circuits and improved on our work of coding and working together as a group by organizing tasks and jobs.

We worked on allowing our CANSAT to take readings of temperature and altitude as basic functions along with other data reading abilities and also worked on perfecting our cans physical shape and durability. We hope to make it as far as we can and hope to do our best as a team !!

We have really enjoyed our experience so far and would really recommend this to any 4th year students who would like to apply their physics and put their coding to the test.
                                                                                                                          CANSAT Team 2018

Follow us on Twitter   @pbccansat

1st Year Assessment Tests

Due to extreme weather conditions the CAT tests scheduled for this Saturday March 3rd are rescheduled for Saturday March 10th.

Registration: 9.00am      

9.30am – 12.45pm - CAT tests (Break will be provided during the tests)

Collection time - 12.45pm    

Apologies for any incovenience caused 

School closure

PBC remains closed on Thursday, 1st March and Friday 2nd March on directions from the Department of Education . No ‘Cookery Cottage’ for 4A tomorrow as a result.

Relentless rowers cross the Atlantic

Past pupils and Eoin O’ Farrell and Sean Underwood (Class of 2010) were part of a four man team known as The Relentless Rowers, that included crew mates Pat O’ Connor and Thomas Browne, which took part in the Talisker Atlantic Challenge considered to be the world’s toughest race covering a distance of 3000 miles (4800km) from The Canaries to Antigua.

They finished the race in 6th place out of 25 boats and completed the race in 32 days and 22 hours making them the fastest crew from the republic of Ireland to ever cross the Atlantic. This year was also the fastest ever race with the Relentless crew completing the race over 3 days faster than any other boat in past races.

Both Eoin and Sean started their rowing while here in Pres and both represented the school with distinction at various national competitions during this time in school and both families have had a strong association with the sport in Pres. It was a fantastic achievement for the crew and as past pupils one which the school and the schools rowing department are extremely proud of. Well done!

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Facebook posts and videos:

Team relentless have DONE IT!

Live from ABSAR with @relentlessrowers

Live from the DOCKSIDE with @relentlessrowers

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BT Young Scientist Day 3&4

Our names are Joachim and Conor. We are second year students in Presentation College. We represented the school this year in the BT Young Scientist in the Social Science section. We both have a love of rowing so we decided to base our project on this sport. We investigated the fitness and mental health of rowers vs non-rowers. 

We were full of nerves when we arrived on the Friday morning because it was Awards Ceremony Day! Thankfully this day was also opened up to the public so it helped keep our minds off of the prize giving later that evening. In the afternoon our stand was visited by the Minister for Health, Simon Harris. He was really impressed with our project and wished us the best of luck for the evening.

At 4.30pm it was time to queue for our seats in the BT Arena. There were lots of special guests including the Minister for Education, Richard Bruton. Fionn, who had submitted a project on Type 1 Diabetes, was awarded "Highly Commended" in the Junior Biology section, congratulations Fionn!

By the end of day 4 we were all invited to take part in a second science competition in DCU and Finn, Pierce and Connor had been invited to present their project to the Sports Department in UL this spring. At 5pm on Saturday it was time to pack up our projects and head back to Cork. We had a brilliant time at the competition and are looking forward to rest of the science competitions we will be taking part in this year. We would all like to thank the school, our parents and our teacher, Ms Hanlon, for the encouragement and help we received before and during the competition.

Joachim and Conor, 2nd Year.

Senior Football v Colaiste Chriost Ri in Douglas 11th January 2018

PBC travelled to Páirc Colmcille for our first GAA match against Chriost Ri in many years. On a foggy and cold day, both teams found it difficult to create chances in the early stages on the heavy pitch. After a tight first half, Chriost Ri lead 1-5 to 1-2 at half time.

In the second half PBC continued to defend well and create scoring opportunities while not always converting them. The scores were level with a minute to go before Chriost Ri scored 2 points to win on a scoreline of 1-13 to 2-8. Management were happy with this as preparation for the Munster championship game next week against Gaelcholaiste Tralee.

Line Up: Cillian Martin; Mark McStay, Briain Murphy, Eoin Nation; Sean Henry Squires, Eoin Healy, Rian O’Flynn (0-1); James O’Donovan (0-2, 1f), Cathal Browne (1-3, 2f); Adam Healy (0-1), Karl Walsh, Jimmy Duggan (0-1); Joe Duggan, Simon O’Neill, Brian Lynch (1-0).

Subs used: Simon Good, Sean Egan, James Buckley, Jack O’Driscoll, Ben McCarthy.

Assessment Tests 1st years 2018/2019

Assessment Schedules:

View, download or print the letter

Assessment tests:

Date: Saturday, February 24, 2018, 9:00 AM -  12:15 PM

9.00am - Registration

9.30am – 10.15am - English

10.30am – 11.15am - Maths

11.30am – 12.15pm - Irish

Collection time - 12.15pm

CAT tests:

Date: Saturday, March 3rd, 2018, 9:00 AM -  12:45 PM

9.00am - Registration

9.30am – 12.45am - CAT tests (Break will be provided during their tests)

Collection time - 12.45pm

BT Young Scientist 2018

This year we were delighted to have 3 projects accepted into the BT Young Scientist Competition in Dublin. The students are writing their account to let us know how they are progressing in the competition. 

“Our names are Conor, Finn and Pierce. We are currently in second year. We were over the moon to find out just before midterm break that the project we had been working on had been accepted into the BT Young Scientist Competition. Our project is “To Determine at What Age and to What Extent Teenagers Modify Their Diet When They Get Involved in Competitive Sports“. We have been working on it since September and have surveyed over 500 secondary school students. 

We set off early on Wednesday morning (very, very early!) with our teacher, Ms Hanlon, and 3 other second year students, project books on our laps, ready to quiz each other as we made our way to Dublin. We arrived at the RDS and took a few moments to take in the sea of projects in front of us. We got ourselves set up and ready for judging. We were lucky to be interviewed by RTÉ online during the morning. This helped us get over our nerves as we waited for our first judge. With a little more help from Ms. Hanlon we were ready to answer any question they had for us. Before we knew it we had the first judging complete and were looking forward to the next two. 

Later we went to Funderland to relax after our first day of competition. After flying around on so many rides that we lost count it was time to head home and get ready for the next day when the competition would be open to the public as well as the judges. We can only hope that the rest of the days will be as great as the first.”

Conor, Finn and Pierce. 2nd year

BT Young Scientist 2018 Competition - Day 2

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Dr. John Monahan and myself, Fionn

“My name is Fionn and I’m a second year student. The project I have completed for the BT Young Scientist Competition is “ Can Full Fat Milk Help Control Blood Glucose Levels in Type 1 Diabetes?” Day two started for us started with a bang. After walking up to the RDS with my teacher Ms. Hanlon and SNA, Noreen Cashman (thanks you to both for all your help) we saw that we already had the judging times for our second judging. We quickly googled who they were to see if it would help us practice before hand. As I was practicing I was delighted to see that Shay Walsh, the Managing Director of BT Ireland had been told to come and check out my project. It was a little nerve wracking but I held myself together and delivered my project, hoping to impress him. Soon after this the public started to arrive and I was delighted to see that there was so much interest from other diabetics in my project as well as the general public.

When I read the name of my second judge my heart skipped a beat. It was John Monaghan, the first winner of BT Young Scientist in 1965 whom I had met on the first morning of the competition. He said he was really impressed with my project and that “some people can paint a picture, only a few can paint great ones”. 

After my judging sessions were complete it was time to explore the RDS and we had a great time playing with lasers in the technology section. 

At 5.30 it was time to head back to the hotel to rest up for day 3, Award Ceremony day! We all have our fingers crossed for luck!

Fionn Coleman, 2nd year”

Supervised Study

Supervised Study begins this coming Saturday 13 January 2018.

6th Year Parent Teacher Meetings

6th Year Parent Teacher Meeting will take place on Thursday the 18th of January, 2018.  

Please register your attendance to the above meeting on entry to the School on the day. Note: The Parent Teacher Meeting will take place from 4.15pm to 6.15pm finishing at 6.45pm

3rd Year Parent Teacher Meetings

3rd Year Parent Teacher Meeting will take place on Thursday the 25th of January, 2018.

Please register your attendance to the above meeting on entry to the School on the day. Note: The Parent Teacher Meeting will take place from 4.15pm to 6.15pm finishing at 6.45pm