On Monday the 8^th of April, the Waltons group from Knockanean N.S. travelled up to the National Concert Hall in Dublin for the final of the Waltons Music for Schools competition. We gathered at the school at quarter to seven in the morning. We then travelled the long journey up to Dublin on the bus. Several teachers accompanied us on the day- Amy, Tina, Louise, Conor, Aileen, Fiona, and Mr. Curran. We arrived at the National Concert Hall at around half past eleven, and we gathered in a room and did a sound check to trial run our performance. After the sound check we had a bit of lunch and then the whole competition began at one o’clock. We found out that we would be the second last group performing on the day. There were six primary schools, six secondary schools and a special school also performing in the competition. Luckily, we had great seats in the front row of the hall. We watched the beginning performances and we soon realised that there was a very tough competition! The other performances were very energetic and it was nice to see the different genres of music and how they responded to the theme of ‘Music Moves us’.

Finally, our moment to perform came. Amy went on stage and introduced our performance which we had named ‘Stepping through the river of sound’. She also told the presenter about how much work we had to do to prepare the performance. We then began performing and we were feeling mixed emotions at the start. Then the crowd began to clap and we even got a standing ovation at the end! When we had finished, we received a huge round of applause and we knew then that we had performed really well. After the performances, we had a nervous wait until they announced the winners, and it took over fifty minutes for them to decide! A group called the Gospel Project entertained us while we waited for the results.

Then the presenter came out to announce the results. After they called out third place, and then second place, we felt so nervous and excited. When the presenter called out first place, she only got to start announcing ‘Knockanean’ when she was drowned out by the cheers and celebrations from our school! We couldn’t believe that we had come in first place, and it was amazing to hear our name being called out. Amy and Naoise then went on stage to collect the prize and certificate. It took us ages to recover from the shock of winning, but eventually we gathered up and got back on the bus. On the way home we stopped at Junction 14 for a meal of delicious Supermacs, Papa Johns and Subway. We arrived back to school very late at half nine in the evening, and there were so many people gathered at the school to welcome us home. It was a brilliant experience and we had an amazing day, which we will remember for the rest of our lives!!

By Orla Brooks, Alison Casey, Hugh Garvey and Archie Hill.