This article is from page 28 of the 2008-04-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 28 JPG
i eFeTMncva CoN Oaks another cause to be happy. “I’ve been told I’m accepted at NCAD in Dublin, providing I get my Leaving
Cert,’ the sixth year student said.
No stranger to success in the com- petition, Lucy has won three special merit awards in recent years.
“T couldn’t believe it – I thought it was a joke,’ Lucy said of her reac- tion to the win. She is delighted to have been accepted for the Dublin college, but is keeping her options open. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet’, said the girl who has been painting since she was a child. Nor did she lick her talent off the stones. Lucy’s mother, and sister both paint while her aunt is an artist and her erand-uncle a sculptor.
A second Clare student, Edel Mulqueen, aged 18, from Kilrush Community School also won a spe-
cial merit award in the competition.
Praising Lucy as “a well deserved winner’, the chairman of the judging panel, Professor Declan McGonagle said that she had produced an intense portrait painting in which every inch of the surface is active and alive with brushmarks and paint.
This is the second successive year in which the top prize has been won by a Clare student. Last year, the overall winner was Cillian Boyd, a student at Gaelcholaiste An Chlair, Ennis. This year, a total of 754 stu- dents from County Clare entered the competition, a 21 per cent increase on the 2007 figure.
Announcing the awards at a recep- tion held in the Dublin City Gallery,
The Hugh Lane, Enda Riney, Coun- try Chairman of Chevron (Ireland) Limited described Lucy as an ex- tremely talented young artist whose work has featured prominently in previous competitions.
In 2004, 2005 and 2006, she won a Special Merit Award for her entries. ‘Her achievement in winning the top prize this year has helped maintain the very high standard set by Clare students in the competition,” Mr Riney said.