An Introduction to Irish Culture

Winners of the Island short story Year 9.

We are now into our last week teaching our three groups and our Year 8 and 10 students have started to look at creating their own pieces inspired by Irish myths and legends.

With Year 10 we have begun showing them examples such as The Magic Cloak, The tale of Saint Patrick and give them some information on leprechauns, fairies, banshees and festivals like Bealtaine and Samhain, explaining superstition from fact. We will soon begin writing their own short stories over their last class.

With Year 8 we have introduced them to the videos on Irish culture that we had shown to our Year 10 group previously. We also got them to listen to The Salmon of Knowledge which they found very interesting.

Year 9 finally got around to writing their own fables with some really inventive and imaginative stories coming out of them. One contained two dinosaurs in a casino.

We have chosen four of the best from the group based on their skill at structuring their fable and having a strong moral at the end. Here are the four we have chosen:

 

David Ortega Fernandez Year 9

In a very hot desert once upon a time, a very hard working ant was challenged to make a house out of sticks and leaves faster than the Giraffe. The ant felt he was being insulted by the giraffe because of his small size. The ant saw this as a perfect opportunity to shut the giraffe’s mouth.

When the challenge started the giraffe sat down and began to see how hardly the ant worked. While she rested she began to think that she could make more in one minute than the ant could make in an hour. But when the challenge had ended the giraffe didn’t make nothing other than piling up some sticks badly and the ant had made a fabulous house.

Moral: To be outstanding in something you only need to have passion to do it.

 

Rodrigo Arellano Year 9

There was once a monkey who liked to practice human qualities because he spent all fo his afternoons going to watch the humans play football. He always said a prayer because he wished to be human or at least he wanted to have human qualities. One day he jumped onto the pitch. He chased the man who had the ball who then kicked him out. A few weeks later the football team had a trip into the jungle, the habitat and home of thousands of species of foreign animals. They reached a lake and something approached, jumping in the trees.

“The monkey” said the manager of the football team.

“Yes, I am the monkey” answered the monkey furiously.

The faces of the football players turned red and their eyes were as big as footballs.

“Don’t judge me because I am smaller, I don’t know how to talk your language or I don’t know how to play football because being a monkey I was capable of learning how to talk.”

 

Pablo Garate Year 9

There was once an owl and an eagle who argued every day at all times about which of them was the best, the owl or the eagle? Both had different ideas and thought that the other breed of the species was better than the other, until one day they noticed that they needed to respect the other animal’s ideas.

The moral is that you should respect other’s opinions.

 

Mickie Guinea Year 9

Once upon a time there were two dinosaurs that were called Simon and Ben, that were gambling in a casino. And Simon was feeling really lucky he was winning everything and thrashing Ben. Simon wanted to take everything from Ben. So Simon told Ben thinking he was going to win again. “If you win I will give you everything I have won today and if I win you will give me all of your belongings.”

So because Ben didn’t have anything to lose because he had already lost everything he accepted the bet. He actually beat Simon and Simon lost everything he had and Ben won it all.

The moral is do not be greedy and also if there’s no risk there is no gain.