COMPETITION TIME

15 October 2015 I Irish Independent Irish Independent I 15 October 2015 Irish Independent 1916 Youth and Imagination Programme | 2120 | Irish Independent 1916 Collection Youth and Imagination Programme

Competitions offer a chance to mark the Rising centenary in art, poetry and song

WITH so much going on over the next few months around the centenary of the Rising, there is no

shortage of fascinating projects and initiatives to get involved in as part of Ireland 2016’s Youth and Imagination Programme.

As we have seen already in these pages, there are also a host of really interesting competitions that are open for entries from across the entire island of Ireland. Listed below are details for the all-island art and song competitions which are already drawing huge interest from across Ireland.

And in the inspiring year of Yeats 2015, when the country marked the 150th anniversary of the great poet’s birth, there are two special poetry competitions to whet the appetite. Reproduced here is the ultimate poem about the Rising, Yeats’s ‘Easter, 1916’, to give everyone a little inspiration as they prepare their entries. Best of luck!

ALL-ISLAND ART COMPETITION This partnership involving the Department of Education in Northern Ireland and the National Gallery of Ireland will invite early years settings and primary and post primary schools across the island to create an image based on imagining the Ireland of 2116. 38 winners will be displayed in the National Gallery of Ireland in September 2016. Full details of this will be available shortly on the education centre network, ateci.ie, and on Scoilnet.

ALL-ISLAND SONG COMPETITION Through a partnership between the Department of Education and Skills and the National Concert Hall, primary and post-primary students will be invited to write a song inspired by the modern, multi-cultural Ireland of 2016. The finalists will be invited to perform on stage of the National Concert Hall in May 2016. Two overall winners will be selected, one at primary and one at post-primary level. Full details can be found on the National Concert Hall website at nch.ie/online/education

ALL-ISLAND POETRY COMPETITION The Libraries and Postprimary Schools 1916 Poetry Competition invites postprimary students to submit a poem on the wide-ranging theme, “Your Ireland”. For details, see librariesireland.ie/services-to-schools, from January 2016. The Poetry Aloud All-Island Poetry-Speaking competition for postprimary schools, organised jointly by the National Library of Ireland and Poetry Ireland, will encourage poems on 1916 themes. Full details are available at http://www.nli.ie/

HOW TO JOIN IN WITH THE CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION

ENGAGEMENT

THE 1916 Centenary will see a remarkable collection of resources and tools available to help schools and students make sense of the Rising and how it shaped us. Here’s a guide to some initiatives,

websites and social web tools that can help you interact with the events.

1 Ireland.ie is the home of all of the information you need about the official 2016 commemorations and events. The organisers are on

Twitter @Ireland2016 and on Facebook (facebook.com/wwwIreland2016) where you can view pictures and other historical documents relating to 1916. The website has details of all the events mentioned in this magazine.

2 Military Archives, overseen by the Defence

Forces, has had a polished social media presence for many years now and is active every day on Twitter. Check them out at @dfarchives — there is currently no Facebook page. See the website at www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie.

3 The National Library of Ireland’s online exhibition

is called The 1916 Rising: Personalities and Perspectives. This study resource draws upon the Library’s rich holdings of books, newspapers, photographs, drawings, proclamations and, not least, manuscript material. In all, more than 500 images have been selected for study and analysis. See: www.nli.ie/1916/

4 Google is among

a number of tech companies running interesting 1916-related initiatives. Its annual Doddle for Google competition will feature a centenary-themed artwork for the 1916

commemorations. Shoolchildren of all ages are invited to submit an entry focused on themes such as Our Home, Our Story, Our Identity and Our Journey. The deadline for entries is November 26, 2015, and the winning design will appear as a ‘Doodle’ on the Google homepage on Easter Monday, March 28, Each category winner will receive two Chromebook laptops — one for the winner and one for their teacher, and the overall victor from 75 finalists will be awarded a €5,000 scholarship towards their third-level studies along with a €10,000 technology grant. Get doodling, people! See: www.google.ie/doodle4google/faq.html

5 Letters1916 is an absolutely fascinating idea that students and teachers will love. This project can be followed on Twitter

@Letters1916 and promises rich reading and learning material for people of all ages. It is the first public humanities crowd-sourced project in Ireland, which means the collection is the result of whatever the public sends in to shape the content. The organisers have asked people to submit letters they may have from relatives who wrote them at the time of the Easter Rising, on dates between October 31 1915 and November 1 1916. To date, there are now more than 2,230 letters that comment on the Easter Rising, literature and art, the Great War, politics, business, and ordinary life. The website is www.letters1916.ie.

6 An Post has produced a fantastic resource for

students and teachers — a set of downloadable PDFs that set out the key events of 1916. The role of the humble stamp in creating Irish identity is a fascinating story, for instance, but for most pupils it is the GPO and 1916 which will strike an immediate chord of interest and recognition. A visit to the GPO museum to look at the Proclamation in the very building where Patrick Pearse read it aloud to passing Dublin citizens is a memorable experience. The downloadable PDFs are pitched at senior primary level and junior second-level but teachers will be able to adapt and supplement the material for various age groups as they require. See: www.anpost.ie/AnPost/History+and+Heritage/Learning/

7 Easter1916.ie is a magnificient online

student project that showcases digital cultural heritage. The site is the final project of a MSc in Applied Digital Media at Griffith College Dublin. It presents a redefined story of the revolution through rarely-seen pictures and witness statements. See: http://www.easter1916.ie/

8 Expect several apps to appear on the scene in the next few months with 1916-related content. One that’s already available to download

takes a detailed and interactive journey around the Dublin streets that witnessed revolution. Using your Smartphone’s GPS function as an interactive map, The 1916 Easter Rising Audio Trail guides users through 15 locations around Dublin City Centre, from Liberty Hall to Collins Barracks. Each location’s story and significance in the events of the Rising is brought to life with its own audio narrative and pictures of the scene in 1916. It was created by Stephen McDonagh, a final-year student at Ballyfermot College of Further Education. The 1916 Easter Rising Audio Trail is available to download for Apple and Android smartphones and costs €1.79.

9 YouTube videos of schools recording a new version of the Proclamatiom will be available to view on the Ireland 2016

YouTube channel, from early next year. Information will be available at ireland.ie. The idea is part of the “proclamation for a new generation” project in which students can write a new 600-word proclamation — written in English or Irish or in another language spoken at the school.

10 The Centenary is about learning and as we have seen above, there are some excellent professional websites and other digital tools

out there to learn all about 1916. But the final word must go to Mr O’Broin’s 6th Class at St Cronan’s School in Bray, Co Wicklow, who have assembled a very impressive website with special features about the Rising. Teacher Karl O’Brien can be proud of his class’s effort — an example to other schools of what can be done together. See: www.mrobroin.stcronans.ie/

A SOCIAL AND ONLINE RISING

BY CIARÁN BYRNE

Irish Independent I 15 October 2015 20 | Irish Independent 1916 Collection Youth and Imagination Programme

I have met them at close of dayComing with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among greyEighteenth-century houses.I have passed with a nod of the headOr polite meaningless words,Or have lingered awhile and saidPolite meaningless words,And thought before I had doneOf a mocking tale or a gibeTo please a companionAround the fire at the club,Being certain that they and IBut lived where motley is worn:All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spentIn ignorant good-will,Her nights in argumentUntil her voice grew shrill.What voice more sweet than hersWhen, young and beautiful,She rode to harriers?This man had kept a schoolAnd rode our wingèd horse;This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force;He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,So daring and sweet his thought.This other man I had dreamedA drunken, vainglorious lout.He had done most bitter wrongTo some who are near my heart,Yet I number him in the song;He, too, has resigned his partIn the casual comedy;He, too, has been changed in his turn,Transformed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.Hearts with one purpose aloneThrough summer and winter seemEnchanted to a stoneTo trouble the living stream.The horse that comes from the road,The rider, the birds that rangeFrom cloud to tumbling cloud,Minute by minute they change;A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute;A horse-hoof slides on the brim,And a horse plashes within it;The long-legged moor-hens dive,And hens to moor-cocks call;Minute by minute they live;The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.O when may it suffice?That is Heaven’s part, our partTo murmur name upon name,As a mother names her childWhen sleep at last has comeOn limbs that had run wild.What is it but nightfall?No, no, not night but death;Was it needless death after all?For England may keep faithFor all that is done and said.We know their dream; enoughTo know they dreamed and are dead;And what if excess of loveBewildered them till they died?I write it out in a verse —MacDonagh and MacBrideAnd Connolly and PearseNow and in time to be,Wherever green is worn,Are changed, changed utterly:

Q Transition year students at Scoil Mhuire in Trim, Co Meath, pictured with their teachers Maira Ni Anluain (on left) and Eimear Flynn and their 1916 art project. Note the used tea bags on the table, which are used to add a retro sepia colour to photographs. FRANK McGRATH

Easter, 1916By WB Yeats

The Dublin Bread Company on Sackville Street after the Rising.

NPA/IRISH INDEPENDENT

Watch more online at independent.ie/1916