Tullamore student wins Schools Playwright competition

Sixteen-year-old Emma Flaherty from Tullamore took the top prize at the Schools Playwright Competition held in the Dean Crowe Theatre in Athlone on Wednesday.

The student got to see her characters come to life on stage on the prestigious stage, marking the start of the RTE All Ireland Drama Festival which runs throughout this week.

Now in its fifth year, the Schools Playwright Competition aims to get more young people, who may not be interested in sport, involved in drama as an outlet.

Emma’s play tells the story of young Cillian who volunteers at his local nursing home where he befriends an elederly resident called Bridget.

Having never known his own grandparents, the drama culminates in Bridget discovering that Cillian is in fact her grandson.

Taking inspiration from her own life, Emma told RTE News that as part of the Gaisce awards she is involved in through her school, she found inspiration.

"In our school, we do the Gaisce Awards, and for my community involvement, I visit my local nursing home every Friday for an hour.”

“It was all inspired from there. Looking at it on the paper, it’s completely different, then you see in on stage and thank ‘wow’ I actually wrote that,” Emma excalimed.

She described her win as “a big honour”.

Emma’s play, It’s a small world, was chosen from a shortlisted number of 23 finalists and her play was performed at the awards ceremony in the Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone, on Tuesday, May 1. The transition year students are part of a competition which involves the creation of a one-act play on the theme of ‘Volunteer’. Thirteen counties (Cavan, Clare, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Laois, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary and Westmeath) were represented in this competition as part of the All Ireland Drama Festival Fringe.

The Dean Crowe Theatre opened its doors to approximately 200 students on Tuesday to host the awards and see the performance of the 2018 winning play ‘It’s a small world’ written by Emma Flaherty from Mucklagh.

Offaly was also represented by joint fourth place going to Róisín English from Banagher College, Coláiste na Sionna, with her play ‘Responder’, which play deals with a volunteer response call-out that turns out to be a near death experience of confrontation with ghosts from the past. Róisín was awarded one of the half scholarships to Stagewise Drama School in Dublin.