On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the school yard was a hive of activity as children swarmed around waving banners and cheering for our King Bee Benas. The following morning Benas and his colony of classmates set off early and made a beeline for the Helix, at DCU in Dublin. It was the day of the All Ireland Spelling Bee and the theatre was filled with a buzz of anticipation. Benas, representing Connacht & Ulster, Ollie from Tipperary and Annie from Wexford faced their supporters and banners telling them to ‘Bee-lieve’ in themselves and to ‘Bee the best!’ Each round saw spellers step up to the microphone, their minds abuzz with potential spellings. They progressed through the rounds impressing all present with their precision , grace and nerves of steel. The room hummed with excitement as Benas reached the head to head against Annie. Words such as coalition, hyperthermia, dodecastyle, sanctimonious and vituperate dripped from their mouths like honey, before the final stinging word:chromatophore. Annie was crowned Queen Bee on this occasion. Scoil Mhuire are incredibly proud of our King Bee Benas, who is already planning a return to the competition next year. Benas won €3000 worth of books for the school library, a voucher for himself and on the day all his classmates each received a goodie bag from Easons full of books and stationary. Huge Thank you to Eason’s for this. It was a memorable and un-bee-lievable day. Well Done Benas!

Well done to our All Ireland finalist Benas. Benas won the county final in Tuam on the 9th of April. He then went on to win the Connaught / Ulster competition on the 21st May in Sligo. He will be competing for the title of “King Bee” and the chance to win a school library to the value of €7,500 in the All Ireland Final in the Helix in Dublin on the 6th June. We are so proud of his achievement. Well done Benas!

Some of the words Benas might encounter are: Flammiferous, Equipollent, Malapropism, Phenomenon