the competition for around fifty years following the death of a pupil during a match in 1928. The school won the Schools Cup in 2004, beating Campbell College in the final. John McCall, the captain of that team, died 10 days after the final while playing for the Ireland U19 rugby team in the IRB U19 World Championship in South Africa. He had been told of his selection for this team on the day of the Schools Cup final. A few months later, a second member of the squad, Todd Graham, was killed in a road accident while visiting his parents at their home in Zambia. These tragedies brought perspective to what had been an otherwise successful year, with the school becoming the first school since Methodist College Belfast in 1936 – and only the second school ever – simultaneously to hold the schools cups for rugby and girls' hockey. The cricket 1st XI were beaten semi-finalists in their equivalent competition. The girls' hockey team won the Kate Russell all-Ireland hockey trophy on the day that John McCall died. The girls' hockey team won the Schools Cup in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010, and were beaten finalists in 2005. They also obtained the title of the best youth hockey team in Europe in 2008. In 2004/2005, the school was described in The Irish Times as the "girls hockey school of the decade". Alumni The Old Armachians is a social organisation consisting of former pupils of the Royal School. Although at one time the Royal School educated politicians and novelists, its most recent notable exports have been rugby players. Tommy Bowe – Irish rugby international and British and Irish Lion Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822) – British Foreign Secretary 1812–1822 Frederic Charles Dreyer – Captain of at the Battle of Jutland, British representative at the League of Nations Military Committee Mervyn A. Ellison (1909–1963) – astronomer Sir Reg Empey – Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (2005–10) Willie Faloon – flanker for Connacht Rugby Leonard Gillespie – appointed Physician-General to the fleet under Admiral Lord Nelson in 1804 aboard . Frank Harris (1855–1931) – British editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher John Lennox – professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford George Green Loane (1865–1945) – classical scholar, schoolmaster, editor, and author Sir John Hall Magowan – British ambassador to Venezuela 1948–1951 Richard Maunsell (1868–1944) –