The boys and girls from Magherabeg competed in the Ficheall chess competition this year for the first time. Our student council set up a chess club this year. It has become very popular.
We were hosted by Woodland NS in Letterkenny and competed against other teams from Woodland NS, Scoil Mhuire gan Smal, Letterkenny Educate together and St. Josephs, Rathdonnell. The boys and girls had a great day mixing with and learning about chess from the other schools.
Our team of Derek Ramsey, Max Doherty, Alaeldien Elhassen, Fintan Gaffney, Ella Clarke, Layla Dillon, Ella Gallagher and Cameron McKnight learned lots of new moves and strategies to bring back and teach the rest of the boys and girls in our school.
“On Wednesday the 11th of March 2026 we went to a chess tournament. The people that went to the chess were Derek, Fintan, Max, Ella, Layla, Ala, Cameron and Ella. G. Mr Meehan got everyone at 9:30.
We got on the bus. At the beginning it was good but when we got to the Dry Arch round about the traffic got very bad. It took us around 40 minutes to get there. There was a lot of different schools when we arrived at Woodlands.
We put all of our stuff down and then we all played a practice match. Five minutes later the man who set everything up told all of us the rules. A match was 20 minutes and all of the queens were at the top of the room and at the bottom of the room. We played our first match and everyone played very good. After 20 minutes we all were done so everyone went to see who we all were playing next. Our next match we all played good again and everyone is having a good time.
After that we had lunch for 5 minutes and then we went outside for 10 minutes. We went back inside we played another 2 matches we all were having fun and we were doing good.
We had lunch again for 5 minutes and we went back to playing chess again because it was raining outside. We played our next two matches. We all had fun and we all played good.
We all got pictures with a banner and then we went back to school. We got back at around quarter past 2 and then we all were getting ready to go home. After 10 minutes all the bus people were gone and after 5 minutes everyone was gone home and that’s the chess tournament.”
By Fintan, Derek and Max
