"Unlocking the Secrets of `Loraaminshee' and the Possible Links with the Lost Medieval Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Termonfeckin, Co Louth", an essay by Niall Murphy (14), a second-year student at Drogheda Grammar School, is overall winner of this year's TCD schools prize in history.

"If we had received it as a BA dissertation from a final-year student, it would have been in the running for a first," says Dr Sean Duffy, incoming head of TCD's department of medieval history, who co-judged the competition with Dr Ciaran Brady of the modern history department. The essay will be published in History Ireland.

Pupils at Drogheda Grammar School also picked up prizes in the middle section: the gold medal went to Aimhirin Brock for "The Rise and Fall of the West Clare Railway", while Kieran Costello gained silver for his piece on "Events in Drogheda and District Leading to the Bombardment of Millmount, Drogheda 4 July 1922".

Andrea Frolich, St Leo's College, Carlow, scooped gold in the senior section for "Carlow and the Great War" and John Carroll, Ashbourne Community School, Co Meath, mined silver for "Yugoslav-Soviet relations 19451956". Charlotte Berkery's study of Timoleague Abbey, Co Cork, pulled in a junior section silver medal for Loreto College, St Stephen's Green, Dublin.