A FIFTH year student from Owensilla in Ballymun has won a prestigious national poetry award, beating off stiff competition from all over Ireland.
Young wordsmith, Shauna Hession, was presented with the Seamus Heaney perpetual trophy and a cheque for
?¬500 after coming tops in the Poetry Aloud competition. The trophy is now on display in the National Library.
Shauna, who attends St. Michael’s Holy Faith Secondary School in Finglas, was up against 1,600 of the finest young poetry speakers in Ireland and was one of 33 finalists chosen to compete in a day long event in the National Library.
Judges deemed the standard as
“extremely high
? but Shauna triumphed by giving powerful recitals of the poems
‘Donal Ã?g’ and
‘September 1913’.
Shauna won the senior category in the competition and then went on to be selected as overall winner. In an amazing double win for their school, Shauna’s classmate, Emmanuella Pomah, was awarded second place in the senior category.
Emmanuella, from Finglas West, recited
‘Out Out’ and
‘September 1913.
Naturally, Emmanuella and Shauna’s teacher, Noel Bannon, was delighted with his two pupils.
“I am very proud of the girls,
? he said.
“It’s a great achievement for them and for our school. We had 37 students competing in the competition and they were all brilliant. To win the competition is amazing.
?
The Poetry Aloud competition promotes poetry among Irish second-level students. It is a 32 county competition.