***Deadlines extended, for both Junior and Senior Writing Competitions, till Sunday, May 8th. Get those stories in!*** 

Despite the points bonus for LC Higher Maths, and the general mania for all things scientific, calculable and reducible, it is still the arts, and particularly literature, for which Ireland is well known abroad.  When that alien race eventually does contact us and ask for representative emissaries, joining the German engineer, the American entrepreneur and the Swiss banker will be the Irish writer- and it could be you!  Dr. Fallon is masterminding two separate competitions this year for the English Department:  the Kevin D. Kelleher Writing Competition for the Junior School and the soon-to-be-eponymised Senior School Competition.  Check out the rules here  (Junior Competition, Senior Competition) and get writing!  In the meantime, we will leave you with a tantalising excerpts from last year’s winners.

From ‘The Dream’, last year’s Junior winner Joshua McCormack’s short story:  Upon entering my legs felt as heavy as lead. I immediately saw his unoccupied chair; his coat and hat hanging on an elaborate wooden stand and unfinished papers lying scattered across his desk. The brown curtains were mostly closed as a mark of respect, with a tiny chink of light filtering through illuminating his chair. The room was as silent as the grave as even the ancient oak grandfather clock had been stopped. I collapsed into a chair and recalled a dream he had told me he had of his own death… (full story)

From ‘Empty Mirrors’ by last year’s Senior winner Rían Boyle: I have spent far too long sitting on the old, cracked red leather couches in therapists’ waiting rooms. After a time, one begins to notice they share a similar musk, as if they had all been bought from the same grimy antique shop. The plastic benches that litter the hallways of hospitals have also garnered that same contempt. Far too often I have sat and waited to hear the same results, that their tests have shown nothing or that I’m a particularly difficult case… (full story, as published in the Irish Times)

 

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