TRALEE Credit Union had two National Winners in the Irish League of Credit Unions Art Competition at its Awards and Exhibition, which took place in Croke Park, Dublin, recently.

Enable Ireland Adult Services, Tralee, came 1st in the Group category and Elisha Buckley, a Leaving Certificate student from Mercy Mounthawk Secondary School, coming third in the 18 years and over category.

Elisha Buckley, who made the trip to Dublin on February 14 with her family, is studying Art for her Leaving Certificate with Ms O’Shea-Daly in Mercy Mounthawk and hopes to go on to Art College in the UK when she finishes school.

Continued below…

Enable Ireland, Tralee also had a great show of support in Dublin accompanied by Enable Ireland Co-Coordinators, Breda Foran and Liz Gaynor. Three of the five winnersw who made the trip to Dublin were: Bernard James, Anthony Ward and Ann O’Brien. The two other winners, Orliath Mangan and George Dineen, were unable to attend.

Their Co-ordinator, Breda Foran, said: “we are delighted for the winners as they put in a lot of work over the five weeks and each brought their own ideas and interpretation of the theme to the project.”

The theme for the competition this year was ‘Happiness is…’ and was open to interpretation by each entrant and aimed to celebrate the creativity, imagination and vibrancy of budding artists.

The competition is one of the biggest art competitions for children and adults alike and has been running for 32 years. It is open to entrants of all ages and this year attracted over 30,000 entries through 300 credit unions nationwide.

Entries were then narrowed down to 32 art pieces, with each receiving national awards from the President of the Irish League of Credit Unions, Brian McCrory, and Marty Whelan in Dublin.