The standard on display in this year's Irish TimesSchoolMag competition is so high we just had to share a few excerpts, writes LOUISE HOLDEN
THE WINNING MAGAZINES in this year’s SchoolMag competition were scarily good. The standard of some publications was as high as you’ll find on a newsagent’s shelf, and, at times, better. The following are excerpts from the best writing of this year’s crop. We chose writing that spoke to its audience, that braved new territories and showed flair, originality, curiosity and courage. We hope you enjoy the following small tasters and that they inspire next year’s SchoolMag winners.
Senior Writing Excerpts
The Ageist Alarm
By Caroline McCarthy
from Ink, Mount Mercy College, Cork (Senior)
I’m sure many readers are familiar with Paul Street Shopping Centre and the “mosquito alarm” that regularly gets switched on there.Despite what its name suggests, this alarm is not being used to keep our streets insect-free. In fact, it was designed to target people like you and me.
The mosquito alarm was invented by Welshman Howard Stapleton in 2005. It is a device that emits a high-frequency sound that can only be heard by those of us who are under the age of 25. It is marketed as a “teen repellent” and is used to dispel groups of teenagers from public areas.
While it may be deemed useful, can we honestly say it is fair and just? What damage does this supersonic sound do to people who can hear it? Research has shown that the continuous high-frequency buzzing can cause dizziness and headaches. It can even contribute to the disruption of equilibrium, which can lead to nausea and disorientation.
While teenagers can try to avoid areas with mosquito alarms, what about babies and toddlers? These young children are also susceptible to the adverse effects of the mosquito alarm. However, they can neither understand the cause of the noise nor avoid it. They are dependent on their parents who may not even be aware of these repellents.
To find out more about the use of the alarm in Cork city, I spoke to Dermot Lucy, manager of Paul Street Shopping Centre, who had the alarm fitted over a year ago. He had been receiving complaints from customers about the crowds of teenagers gathered in front of the centre. He also mentioned that a number of other businesses in the city inquired about how to purchase a similar alarm, including pubs and a church.
Imagine having to remember to turn off an appliance that cannot be seen or heard. We can only deduce that these alarms are left on for days at a time, without the owner noticing. Imagine the discomfort this would cause to young children living and sleeping in nearby houses? There is no way governments or local authorities would stand by and let this product on the market if it targeted pensioners, or if only one race of gender could hear it. If the alarm cannot differentiate between troublemakers and those just having a chat, between people who are vandalising and small children, it shouldn’t be turned on at all.
The truth is that young people are being treated as second-class citizens.
Mali
by Sadhbh Ní Dhonnabhain
from The Project, Coláiste An Phiarsaigh, Glanmire
Nothing could have prepared me for a three-week visit to Mali in West Africa. At the risk of understatement, it’s so different from the life we lead here in the western world where we are so cocooned, protected and simply unaware of the scale of poverty and the constant struggle faced by so many every day of their lives.
The first thing to hit my senses was the variety of smells. I smelt Africa before I ever touched it: it was such a welcoming smell of heat, sand, dust and difference – and that was just the airport.
Straight out of the airport you’re met by hungry children and the sick, all begging. At home we see ads on the television for NGOs and we can switch channel. In Mali there’s no place to look away. The poverty and injustice are real. There is this buzz: everyone is doing something – carrying water, building, fixing things, cooking. It’s like the whole place is moving in rhythm. There’s a beat to Africa that you don’t hear or see in Ireland.
My hope is that in crossing the seas and land that African people will carry with them some of their culture and beliefs. African lives can enrich our lives if we are open to the possibility. As a 16-year-old, that’s the world I’d like to grow up in.
Reaching for Glory
By Thomas Roche
From Christians magazine, Christian Brothers College, Cork
It was a scorching hot September day with our Junior Cert results looming. That was the least of our concerns. Bowen Shield training was starting that afternoon and everyone had the same expectation – to bring the shield back to CBC for the 13th time and nothing less. After the past two disappointing seasons, redemption was on our minds. There was a hunger and desire in the team and coaching staff. The next four months would have their highs and lows – it was a memorable time for a team reaching for glory . . .
The travelling support invaded the pitch there and then. Conor Scannall became CBC captain number 13 to lift the Bowen Shield and all the disappointments from the last two years seemed more distant than ever. The shot at glory comes every year – this year we reached out and grabbed it.
Allergic to Life
by Mark Watters
from TYMS, St Columba’s College, Donegal
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is a chronic illness which affects approximately 7 per cent of the population in the US where it is now becoming recognised as the terrible and debilitating illness that it is. There is no cure for MCS. Alternative medicines and treatments may help but it usually stays with its host for life. My sister of 25 years was having the time of her life. Everything was unfolding perfectly and everything she wanted in life was in reach. Then, in an instant, the best time in her life became the worst.
My sister was living in Dublin and had a first class honours degree.
She was working as a lab assistant in university and had been offered a PhD. Before starting the PhD she decide to take a four-month trip to South East Asia. She planned to conquer mountain-climbing, live with tribes, elephant trekking, jungle camping and scuba diving. Little did she know that diving would change her life forever . . .
For MCS patients to have a chance of recovering, it is essential that they live in a completely chemical-free environment; however, this is costly and time-consuming and nearly impossible in today’s world.
If she manages to get a safe environment where she can escape from the chemical triggers of MCS, then she will hopefully be able to get some relief. There is no cure for MCS, but with my sister’s enthusiasm and optimism I am sure that one day she will live the life she was meant to live.
Sweet Things
by Shona McGarry
from Fanciful, Mount Anville Secondary School
When Chupi Sweetman fell ill at 16, she channelled her food intolerances into a best-selling cookbook. Now, at 25, she is a self-styled fashion designer who still lives by the same creed: you can do anything.
Chupi Sweetman is sitting in front of us, chatting about the cookbook she co-wrote with her brother – What to Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything. Chupi is going from strength to strength. She’s just been signed for Top Shop in Belfast and she’s planning for the future. So, how did it all happen?
“The first dresses I made were for my Barbie, aged five. I had a mini plastic Singer,” she laughs. Warm and likeable, Chupi is surprisingly relaxed for someone so busy. Business is good and the label is thriving.
“Barbie’s clothes were so hideous, because, like, remember what she wore?” She sounds outraged. “I was like, ok, this obviously has to get better.” Her clothes sold. As the youngest person they had ever taken on at SeSi, Chupi’s clothes were already selling faster than anything else.
From there she went to Cow’s Lane Designer Market. “And that’s how it started. I saw 30 or 40 girls wearing my clothes last week when I was at a lecture and I thought it was so cool. That’s what I wanted it to be: rather than watch someone walk down the catwalk in one amazing dress, I’d rather watch people wearing them and looking amazing.”
The Book Club in the Sky
by Rebecca Lyons
from Bespoke, Loreto Secondary, Clonmel
The Bible. Holy tome. Ecclesiastical godsend. The Word. God’s teaching on Earth. Just a book. Wait a second . . .
It’s important for me to explain, I’m not atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic or Jewish. I’m Catholic. The point is, I go to Mass. The mob shifts impatiently . . . I’m getting to it! Anyway, one day I was sitting in my local church with my family. Staring up at the priest reading reverently from the Bible, I noticed how he kissed it before and after doing so. And I thought, for a second, like an atheist. Or at least one with an imagination. What, disregarding all the utter foolishness about the Word of God, am I left with? A book, really old, full of stories. So what does that make us, I thought, as I stood for the Lord’s Prayer along with all the others? Mindless sheep? Drones?
“Why, no!” said the strangely English accent in my mind. “We’re all members of one giant Book Club!”
People bicker, fight stupidly, become bitter enemies, kill for it. “You don’t understand me!” a teenager wails at the Bible from under a long fringe. “You don’t understand me and I don’t care,” the Bible seems to reply. So why is this one, austere, complicated book – not even a picture book – so popular?
If we start like this, perhaps people will begin to understand religion, or, in my case, Catholicism, better. Show our saints and martyrs, our Saviour, as people first then throw in the holy thing and BAM! You’ve got me hook, line and sinker. Because a book’s always more interesting when you know what’s going on. Then you can decide whether to believe or not.
Celtic comedy
by Rob McCarthy
from Peruse, Blackrock College (Senior)
As our country plunges into economic abjection, perhaps it’s worth looking at Ireland under a different light. At present we see our nation as a cocaine-bingeing, money-splurging waster of a parent who provided us with plenty of material goods but is now unable to raise her disconcerted children. All our food shouts at us in German now. We sit at the breakfast table drinking our Lidl Orangensaftkonzentrat, dreading the day ahead. But what we’re forgetting is that in Ireland we live for this stuff. The misery, the shades of grey, the melancholy that consumes our landscape is what makes us the resilient and utterly hilarious people that we are. For such a small nation we have produced an insanely impressive accumulation of comedians. So as we embark further into penniless gloom, it’s worth remembering that we have the power to laugh off our problems. We’ve been doing it for years.
Celebritics
by Eugene Egan
from Peruse, Blackrock College
Most of the time they’re silent watchers, doing what they do no better or worse than the rest of us. But every so often they pop up and, when they do, everyone knows about them. They scream at you from billboards on the motorway. Open up your newspaper and they’ll be there. Desperately trying to assert themselves as individuals while not contradicting the policies of their parties.
The politicians.
If prostitution is the oldest profession, politics must have come right after it. While these two professions might be similar in some respects; they both sell themselves for all they’re worth and they both lie through their teeth; prostitution hasn’t produced any really great thinkers (except for this one I know called Crystal who has some pretty radical ideas of public sector reform).
Junior Writing Excerpts
Kallum’s Korner
by Kallum O’Muircheartaigh
from Crouch Touch Pause Engage, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne
My theory was given more credibility when, having submitted the winning entry to a competition to see what would be done (to decorate the outside wall of our school), two artists were awarded €55,000 to see their creation displayed. I eagerly anticipated the outcome, expecting perhaps a funky mural that would transform our wall into a kaleidoscope of colour. Every dull morning arriving at school would be lifted by the sight of what might resemble the “F” train out of Harlem. What eventually appeared was a bemusing series of curled lime-green metal sheets. The philistine in me failed to grasp their artistic merits. However, what did excite me was the fact that even though our metalwork class could have thrown this creation together for free, €55,000 was offered for the display. There’s a pattern here and my number one choice on the CAO form is beginning to pick itself.
War Stories
by Gus Knight
from Crouch Touch Pause Engage, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne
Trying to remember the many events of the 20th century is a daunting task. From the Normandy landings to the Cold War, students have reams of what seems like uninteresting and irrelevant facts to learn. But when those facts are linked to reality, the topics become alive and we can relate to the material and share experiences that would otherwise never see the light. My first primary source is classmate Kallum’s great grandfather, who, remarkably, is in his 102nd year.
“My great grandfather is William W Cooke. He was born in 1907 and is still alive today. He left school at 14 and became a stable lad at Hickwood Park for Lord Camrose. He joined the Royal Artillery at the age of 17. After enlisting he was stationed in Cairo where he learned to fight in combat. He served in the real hotbeds of the war, from Africa, Greece, Italy and most significantly, France where he was actually rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk.
“When I hear the teacher tell of the mass evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force, I have to pinch myself to realise that I could pick up the phone and talk to my great grandfather about the whole experience. Needless to say I hope it comes up in the exams.”
Freedom
by Cariosa McHugh
from Not Another Teen Magazine, St Cuan’s College, Castleblakeney
Diego Guerro ran his bony fingers through his hair as he scanned the dimly-lit tunnel.
His shirt clung damply to his chest and his trousers were torn at the knee to reveal a deep gash and crimson blood. He stood up, cautiously.
His head was swimming with muddled and incoherent thoughts. He had multiple questions but so few answers. He had no recollection of the previous day’s events.
A venomous wind swept through the cavern – the exit had to be near. He clutched the cold stone walls and felt for the first time the searing pain from a laceration on his face.
