On another outstanding day for local schools athletics Fermanagh's young athletes returned from a sweltering Tullamore with a record haul of six All-Ireland schools medals crowned by another Irish title for St Michael's Long Jumper Ciaran Dolan.

For many years a number of very talented athletes, both male and female, from the county have picked up a medal or two at these prestigious championships, and indeed there were many years where no medals were won or even threatened. But with four medals last year and six more this time around, Fermanagh boys are now firmly on the national radar and with several of the medal winning athletes eligible for the same age group next season there is the promise of further success to come. Indeed a total of eleven top six finishes were achieved by young athletes from the Lakeland county on the hottest day of the year so far, a day broken by a torrential downpour in the early afternoon which briefly folded the fine midlands track.

The top performer on another day of sterling efforts was the AAA's Long Jump champion Ciaran Dolan whose winning effort of 6.55m came in the second round of the Inter Boys Long Jump, a competition he dominated with all his four legal efforts being well in excess of anything his rivals could muster. Indeed Dolan, for whom 6.55m was a personal best, was unfortunate to see an effort measured at 6.81m in the third round ruled out for a fractional foul.

Earlier in the day he had also produced a personal best of 13m in the Triple Jump but found himself edged out of a double gold and into second place by just 4cms on what was, nonetheless, another memorable day for this hugely talented performer.

Another reliable medallist at national level has been Erne Integrated College pupil Gerard Maguire who has been in fine form all season and in the Inter boys 100m he lead Ulster champion Scott Hamilton for the first seventy meters before the 200m specialist edged ahead with Maguire's 11.31 being an electronic PB and setting him up nicely for a go at the Tailteann games on June 28th and hopefully a place in the Irish team, a competition for which his Regent House rival is overage.

First All-Ireland medals are always a notable achievement in any code and for two St Michael's athletes Saturday was the day when this landmark achievement in any developing athlete's career was reached.

For Mark Hoy the bronze he took in the Inter boys 800m in a personal best of 2.00.70 was the reward for three years of committed effort over both cross-country and on the track which has seen Hoy mature into once of the brightest prospects in the country. Indeed with a little more tactical awareness he might well have secured an even higher position as he led the race out from the bell and was only gunned down in the closing straight, finishing less than a second adrift of the winner.

Hoy was to go on to take fourth spot in the 400m just an hour later, in another personal best of 52.84, despite the gruelling heat and he can look forward to breaking the two minute barrier before the summer is much older.

For Conal Mahon who took silver in the Junior Triple jump, his first All-Ireland medal was tinged with mixed feelings. Undoubtedly Mahon, the Ulster champion, was delighted to secure a national medal but he will have been disappointed in knowing that he was well capable of taking the gold which went to Anderson, the Ulster runner-up, at a modest 10.67m, a distance well below Mahon's best, in a competition badly affected by the torrential downpour which hit the midlands just before lunchtime.

However Mahon can be very pleased with what has been a hugely successful season to date and he is very much one to watch for as he gets stronger in the years to come.

The final Fermanagh medal, and the fifth to go to St Michael's College, went to Niall Cullen who, despite suffering from mild asthma induced by the stifling afternoon conditions, produced a stirring last lap to recover from a position where he seemed well out of medal contention to secure that third podium spot in 9.06.81, his second fastest time ever.

Cullen returned less than an hour later to produce a brave run for 6th place in the 1500m, the only athlete to attempt that double in conditions much more suited to the sprinters.

There were also 6th place finishes for Jonathan Magwood of Portora in the junior 200m, where he unfortunately sustained a quad injury which prevented him going to his blocks for the 100m, and for James O'Connor of St. Michael's in the senior 200m while Caolan McBrien went one better finishing 5th in the senior Triple Jump.

Fifth was also the position filled by James Speight of Erne Integrated in the Inter Boys Steeplechase following a good run in the torrents of rain which left the whole track looking like the water-jump while Stuart Connor of St Michael's picked up a fine sixth in the inter shot with a personal best of 12.87m and both Speight and Connor, like Maguire, Dolan, O'Connor and McBrien are all at the bottom of the two year age bandings so the summer of 2009 should hold much promise for all of them.

With St Michael's just edged into second spot in the intermediate team standings by throwing powerhouses Belvedere College, a school with an synthetic athletics track on the roof of the building, this was another momentous day for local schools athletics, and shows once more what a combination of talent, hard work and good parental support can produce. All three are present in abundance locally and the fruits will no doubt be seen again this weekend in Antrim where the Ulster/NI age group championships take place on Saturday and Sunday.

For Maguire, Dolan, Connor, Speight and Cullen (Hoy unfortunately being overage) the prospect of an Ulster vest and a tilt at an Irish one in Santry on June 28th lies ahead, heady days indeed when Fermanagh have half a dozen athletes on an Ulster schools team.