Mairead’s touch of Magic is write stuff

THE first that Mairead O’Connor heard that she had won a nationwide writing competition was when her mother arrived in her school as she was doing Christmas tests.

“I was delighted,” says the 12 year old who is a first-year student at St Mary’s Secondary School in Charleville.

“I could not believe it. We were all asked by our teacher, Miss Elaine O’Connell, to write a story based on a cartoon of a girl in love with this big hairy old yoke. We didn’t have to do it, but my teacher is really nice and I have always loved writing stories so I decided to give it a try.”

Out of a nationwide entry of 1,500, Mairead’s short story, April West and the Magic Glass, was chosen as the winner of the senior category of the Specsavers and Bord Gáis Energy 2011 Irish Book Awards national short story competition.

The junior category was won by 11-year-old Caoimhe Flanagan, from Kilkenny, for her short story, A Very Hairy Tale.

Just like the subject matter of her story, winning the contest was like a fairytale for Mairead. “I could not believe when I heard I had won the competition. It was a huge surprise and everyone in the class was thrilled.” So was Mairead’s mother, Anne. “It all happened so quickly. It is wonderful, although Mairead has hardly had time to savour her victory as she has been off school for a couple of days with a bad throat.”

Specsavers celebrated its sponsorship of the Specsavers Irish Children’s Book of the Year by launching a nationwide children’s short story competition. Inspired by a humorous cartoon from celebrated cartoonist Mike Williams, children from across the country were asked to create a short story in 500 words or less.

Noel Meehan, chairman of Specsavers in Ireland, was delighted with the response to the competition. “It has convinced us that the future of short story writing in Ireland is in safe hands,” he said.

Mairead and Caoimhe received all 10 short-listed titles in the Specsavers Irish Children’s Book of the Year category from this year’s Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards, while their school libraries also won copies of all 10 titles.

* Mairead’s winning short story will be reproduced in tomorrow’s edition.