Even in a season which had already seen them achieve the heights of excellence Fermanagh's young athletes reached another level of achievement in Antrim last weekend when they captured no fewer than five All-Ireland titles and added in a couple of silver medals for good measure over yet another two memorable days of action at the Woodies DIY national championships.

Undoubtedly the top performer for a local standpoint was James O'Connor of St. Michael's College who not only captured his first Irish title in the U18 100m on Saturday evening, but returned on Sunday to take the 400m gold on a weekend where he finally delivered the type of performance of which he is all too capable.

The second St. Michael's athlete to take Irish gold for the first time at the weekend was Finn Corrigan who quite literally ran away with the U16 3000m from gun to tape in a downpour, establishing a thirty meter after 800m and never relinquishing this advantage as he romped home in a big personal best of 9.25. Corrigan has had a superb season and is pushing to join the established group of nationally successful competitors like O'Connor, Ciaran Dolan and Gerard Maguire.

Both Dolan, who won the U17 Long Jump with 6.44m in appalling conditions early on Saturday morning and Maguire who clocked a PB of 11.27 in dominating the U17 100m on Saturday afternoon have their joy at winning more Irish gold added to by the fact that both have been selected for the Irish schools team to contest the International schools championships in Bedford on July 19th.

Both athletes completely dominated their events on Saturday with Dolan returning on Sunday to produce a PB of 13.04m in the Triple Jump, although this was only enough for silver behind Irish schools champion Shane Prout, and Dolan will contest both events for Ireland in Bedford while Maguire will don the green vest for both the 100m and sprint relay.

Fermanagh narrowly missed a clean sweep of the 100m titles from U16-U18 level when Stuart Connor, carrying a heavily strapped ankle ligament injury, was pipped by 1/100th of a second in the U16 event by Joseph Dowling of DSD whom Connor defeated by a similar margin twelve months ago in Tullamore. There were a number of other excellent performances from Fermanagh athletes at the weekend, none more so than Mark Hoy, who sacrificed the 800m to focus on the one lap event and was rewarded with a big PB of 51.94, some consolation for being edged into 4th spot behind O'Connor's gold medal winning performance.

There were also good performances over 400m from Caolan McBrien in the U19 race with a PB of 52.18 and Daniel Walsh who made the U17 final in his first Irish championships, eventually finishing 6th and in the U18 girls 300m from Aine Flanagan who made the final where she finished 5th.

There was disappointment however for Niall Cullen in the U18 3000m where an unfortunate asthma attack put paid to his hopes when well placed with three laps remaining.

Connor (injury permitting) and Conal Mahon will also be in action as the 200m and 1500m events and remaining field events are sorted out in the more traditional surrounds of the Midlands venue.