Omagh girl claims her ‘patch’ in the Palace

THE artistic talent of a local six-year-old has been rightly recognised by the judges of a prestigious royal rug-making competition which took place earlier this year to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.

Over 2,000 hopeful students from across the North entered their designs in the ‘Platinum Jubilee Rug Competition’ in a bid to claim their patch on a portion of a rug bound for Buckingham Palace.

However, of the thousands who entered, only a fortunate few would have their work featured on the finished fabric. One of the lucky contestants who made the final cut was Omagh Integrated Primary School’s Fiadh Kerr.

In fact, the P2 pupil placed in the top three in the North.

So, as a result, Fiadh, along with her proud parents, Declan Kerr and Cara Button, and her doting teacher, Natasha Eccles, travelled to Hillsborough Castle for a day of celebration last Wednesday.

After Fiadh’s big day out at the historic estate, the UlsterHerald spoke with Fiadh’s teacher, Natasha Eccles, to find out how it went.

SPECIAL

“It was such a special day,” began Natasha.

“We were literally treated like royalty, and Fiadh had a fantastic time, even getting to try on one of the queen’s tiaras. It was sort of every little girl’s dream,” she reflected.

The idea to ask children to submit designs expressing ‘their own Northern Ireland’ was one conceived of by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), in association with Ulster Carpets.

“They initially whittled the 2,000 down to a shortlist of 30, then that 30 became five,” said Natasha.

“We were over the moon with that, as you can expect.”

But then, to make Fiadh’s fairytale even more magical, that five were reduced to a top three… and, still, the Omagh girl remained on the list!

“Originally, we were due to attend with the other pupils last month. However, Fiadh had been involved in a project that was being celebrated by way of a school assembly that day.”

PAGEANTRY

But NIO Minister, Conor Burns, refused to allow Fiadh’s special achievement to slip by without the P2 experiencing all of the pomp and pageantry such an accomplishment deserved.

“The whole day at the castle was such a lovely experience.

“Everyone there was clearly interested in making us feel comfortable, and their primary focus was on making this day all about Fiadh.

“There are plenty of bad stories about politicians swirling around at the moment, but this day provided a happy contrast to all of that,” noted Natasha, with genuine optimism.

Present for some of the day was DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, whom Natasha said was ‘polite, and clearly interested in education’.