Tipperary's Ella Heeran is champion speller in Munster

Tipperary student Ella Heeran has been named the winner of the Munster Provincial Bee 2017. The student from Grange National School, Clonmel, fought off stiff competition from several other spelling enthusiasts and will now move forward to compete in the All-Ireland Eason Spelling Bee final in Croke Park on June 20th.

The 12-year-old came up trumps in the highly anticipated final, held in the Strand Hotel, Limerick, against contestants from Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Clare and Limerick. Speaking about her win, the 6th class student said she; “is really happy to have won and is looking forward to the All-Ireland final in June.”

The nationwide competition is part of an overall Eason literacy and reading initiative to encourage and inspire children to develop their spelling and pronunciation skills. Over the years the competition has helped school children gain a greater appreciation of words in a fun and educational way.

Brendan Corbett, Group Head of Marketing at Eason, said; “Now in its seventh year, we’ve seen the Spelling Bee record of 1,100 school participants grow from strength to strength over the past number of years and we would encourage everyone to get out there and support their local bees. We’re really looking forward to the final and the support from families, classmates and teachers has been fantastic so far.”

Ella will be joined by other provincial winners from Ulster, Connacht and Leinster to compete for a goodie package full of books worth €500 and the prestigious title of the 2017 Eason Spelling Bee champion. The All-Ireland winning school will also receive a mountain of books for their library to the value of €7,500.