Tipperary student Saoirse Edmond honoured with Trinity College Dublin 'Book of Kells' creative writing award

A young Tipperary writer is among those honoured with an award at a national creative writing contest organised by Trinity College Dublin.  

Some 1,500 budding artists and writers of all ages from all over Ireland participated in the Book of Kells Creative Competition

Trinity College Dublin’s nationwide challenge to get creative and be inspired by one of Ireland’s greatest cultural treasures, the Book of Kells produced a phenomenal 1,500 budding artists and writers, aged from 3 to 83.

Students from 52 primary schools and 42 secondary schools, from every county in Ireland, as well as the US and UK got their pens and paint brushes out and participated in the competition.

Saoirse Edmond, of Limerick Educate Together National School,  but from Co. Tipperary, received Second Prize in the Writing Entries at Primary level, for her work, entitled ‘Breath of a Book’.

The six overall winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony for all who participated this evening, surrounded by family, friends and teachers.

Congratulating the winners on their great achievement, Laureate na nÓg, author and illustrator, PJ Lynch, ambassador of the competition and judge said: “I was absolutely delighted by the fantastic talent shown by so many of the entrants and by the creativity, imagination and originality. It was a pleasure to judge this competition but a very difficult task to choose the winners.”

Another judge, Trinity’s Professor Darryl Jones, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences who awarded the prizes said: “This was a truly wonderful competition to be a part of, to see how the extraordinary Book of Kells still manages to hold such inspiration for all ages even today. The talent shown by all our entrants was incredible and made the task of judging the entrants even more difficult. We are however very happy with the wonderful poetry and short stories that we have chosen as our winners as they truly captured a modern interpretation of The Book of Kells, while adding their own style and vision into each piece."

The competition is now open for 2018 and the theme is going to be ‘Animals in the Book of Kells’. The closing date will be November 30th 2018 and further information will be available in the coming weeks on the website https://www.tcd.ie/visitors/competition/