Errigal College students prize-winners at the Allingham Arts Festival

Two of Errigal College Letterkenny’s sixth year students are celebrating academic achievement, and a third qualified for the top 10.

Eoin Byrne and Joe McCafferty were prizewinning poets in this year’s Allingham Arts Festival, and fifth year, Jo-Ann Evans' short story made the final straight. Held in Ballyshannon, the Allingham Arts Festival festival is a very highly regarded celebration of arts and culture in Ireland. 

This welcoming and friendly festival includes the annual Poetry, Short Story and Art Competitions for primary and secondary schools, sponsored by Donegal ETB. 

Eoin Byrne won the ‘Fifth Year and Leaving Cert Poetry’ section’ with his poem Islands. This looks at teenage relationships from a point of view that is hardly ever discussed - like the contrasting sense of peace and despair, the “loneliness and euphoria” that comes from escaping unwanted relationships.

Eoin explains that “the solitude of ending a relationship is sometimes something that we dream to pursue”. 

Joseph McCafferty’s The End of the Line came third in the same competition. This poem considers the end of the steam engine, personifying the trains’ “overworked corpses”, with their “bodies are battered and covered in rust”.

His poem closes with the stark reality that the steam engines “will not be remembered when they meet the cutter’s torch”.

Joe’s love of the history of the railways was heightened when he spent last summer working in the Donegal Heritage Railway Centre. “My poem recalls the loss of the steam engines and is also a commemoration of the end of the railways in Donegal”.

Their English teacher Mrs Caitriona Hasson was delighted that her students’ talents were recognised: “It’s become easier to teach the rest of my Leaving Cert class this year because they are all so inspired by Eoin and Joe’s success. They all entered this competition, encouraging and editing each other’s work and the two winners Eoin and Joe are only the tip of the  talented writing iceberg!”

Jo-Ann Evans is a fifth year student at Errigal College. Her short story A Mysterious Night is about a Letterkenny teenager being teleported around the world. Ms Hasson reviewed Jo-Ann’s work as she developed the story in her gripping teenage fantasy fiction story. 

“This is Jo-Ann’s first short story and her imagination is full of great ideas. There is definitely more to come from her”.