By Jennifer Isik

Long Beach high school students were challenged this year to create Gaellic Quatrains for the 2017 Martin J. Kelly Writing Contest. Here were the parameters that the students had to work within:

Gaelic: The ancient and present language of the people of Ireland. Although English is the common language of the Irish people, Gaelic Irish is still the first language of the people in certain parts of Ireland and there is a growing interest in Ireland and in America and other countries in studying Gaelic Irish. It is a terrible thing for a language to be allowed to die.

Quatrain: A four line stanza.

The Rannaigheacht: (the Irish name for the Gaelic Quatrain) is a four line stanza with a set pattern. The first stanza is three syllables long; the second, third and fourth lines are seven syllables long. The rhyme scheme is a, a, b, a; this means that lines one, two and four rhyme. The tricky part of this form is that the line three rhyme cross rhymes with the third syllable of line four.

On Wednesday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. the Irish Cultural Society honored the following seven winners at the Garden City Public Library: Dillon Razler (11th grade), Richard Lilly (11th grade), Lauren Bulik (10th grade), Skyla Robinson (10th grade), Kaitlyn Salvato (10th grade), Adrianna Sadjoeri (10th grade) and Taylor Rudtner (11th grade). All winners of the contest will be given a $50 prize, a generous donation by the H.W. Wilson Foundation. Additionally, all contestants will be given Certificates of Merits. Congratulations to all of this year’s recipients!