What’s love got to do with it? Asks the toastmaster champion, a Limerick native

DEBATING your way to the top is what one Limerick native has done, as he won the International Toastmasters competition which took place in the UK. 

Mark Quinn, Limerick native and  member of the Thomond Toastmasters club, the only Limerick-based club of its kind, claimed first place at the international humorous speech competition, with his speech ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ in Liverpool.

The competition is held annually between some 200 toastmasters’ clubs located in Ireland and the UK. Mark’s speech was judged to be the best from the six finalists from both countries.

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Describing his win as an ‘enormous shock’, Mark explained how it felt to win on a world stage: “The competition in the final group was very, very strong.

“I was sat in the audience watching all of the other finalists’ speeches and honestly, any one of them could have won.

“When I heard my name come out as first, I couldn’t even stand at first as I didn’t realise it was my name that they were calling out!”

To win, Mark had to navigate through club, district and divisional competitions, eventually arriving at the international finals in Liverpool. 

Mark, who currently lives in London but is originally from the Castletroy area, often travels home to attend club meetings, if not attending on Zoom.

A member of the Thomond Toastmasters club since 2020, Mark attends the fortnightly club meetings in the Castletroy Park Hotel on the second and fourth Thursdays of every month, which he often flies home to do. 

Explaining his reasons for returning to Limerick to join a toastmasters club rather than staying put in London, which would seem more convenient, Mark said: “I wanted to learn how to say more, with less.

“I joined a club very near to my house in London and was with them for about six months, but ultimately, found it too formal.

“Thomond Toastmasters felt a lot more friendly, supportive and had a warmer environment - public speaking is not actually that difficult, but it is nerve racking.”

Working as a service sales rep for a software service company, Mark is often required to present to audiences of one person to as many as 25 at a time. 

He therefore finds the practice of public speaking with toastmasters a “definite help, in a professional capacity”. 

Mark concluded by saying that it isn't that people struggle with what to say, but rather how to say it: “People aren't short on opinions - it is expressing them that catches people.”