Two MacArthur High School freshmen win Irish writing contest

BY GARY SIMEONE

Katelyn Swint and Casey Markle, two freshman at MacArthur High School, had to imagine themselves as Irish teenagers living in the United States. The exercise was part of the Martin J Kelly writing challenge, sponsored by the Irish Cultural Society of Garden City. The contest was entitled ‘A Letter To Home,’ where the writer of the letter was a native born Irish teenager temporarily living with relatives on Long Island.

Swint and Markle placed first and second respectively in the contest, which had them pitted against students and teacher’s from other high schools across the County.

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Michael O’Shea, English teacher at MacArthur, said the girls did an outstanding job researching Irish culture and submitting original entries on the topic.

“All of our students had to pretend they were citizens of Ireland living in the USA on a temporary basis,” said O’Shea. “They each had to write a letter back home, discussing their experiences of school-life and the attractions and landmarks they saw while they were here.”

Swint, who won first-prize in the challenge, said she worked on her submission during the winter break in order to submit it by the April 19th deadline.

“I wrote a piece about my sister and I living with my aunt temporarily on Long Island,” said Swint. “I talked about my experiences in a new school, exploring the city and seeing Broadway shows. I even went into detail about riding the subway and trying New York City pizza for the first time.”

She said that the length of her letter was nearly 500 words and she made sure to go into detail about all of her experiences living in a new country.

Markle, who placed second in the contest, said she wrote about flying in a plane to the United States and living in her aunt’s apartment for two weeks.

“I wrote about the landmarks I visited like the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center and about how brave people were for being there,” said Markle.

She said that in her letter, she spent only one day as a freshman in her new school. “I really just focused my writing on hanging out with the new friends I made, and all the great things we did, like visiting the different sites on Long Island and in Manhattan,” said Markle.

As an award for winning first-place in the competition, Swint won $300. Markle, who placed second won $150. There were twenty-one other students at MacArthur, all freshman, who received Honorable Mention in the writing challenge.