WHEN a 16-year-old Faye Curran sat down in her bedroom inspired by the work of Róisín Ingle to pen an entry for the 2016 Clare Champion Short Story competition little did she realise that one day she would be collaborating with the acclaimed author and journalist.

An article co-written by Faye and Róisín exploring how Covid has changed sex for Gen Z was recently published in the Irish Times magazine, with Faye telling us it was “amazing” to be able to work with her writing hero.

While she is thrilled to see her byline appearing next to Róisín’s, Faye has never forgotten where it all started, seeing her writings published for the first time in The Clare Champion as part of the popular schools’ competition.

Faye, from Ballyea and a former student of Coláiste Muire in Ennis, is currently in her fourth year studying European Studies at Trinity College. She has been involved in the student newspaper ‘The University Times’ since starting college and is currently the magazine editor.

It was an article published in The University Times which brought her to the attention of Róisín, she explains.

“I’ve written for The University Times since I was in first year. It’s a really great publication and I’ve come up through the ranks over the last four years and worked at it the whole way through college. It has kind of been as important as my own degree to me.

“I wrote an article in February of this year about newspaper vendors in Dublin, the men who sit on O’Connell Street and sell papers and have done so for decades. It ended up doing quite well on Twitter, a couple of different journalists and Róisín Ingle saw it.”

“She reached out to me and asked if we could meet up for coffee because she said she really liked the piece. We met and she explained she had this idea for an article but she wanted the young person’s perspective. She had liked the way I had approached the topic and the way I’ve written so she asked me to work on it with her.”

Working with Róisín was a dream come true for Faye who says, “She is my favourite journalist and has been since I was about 12. I’ve read her column every single week. It was amazing to be able to work with her. It honestly blew my mind, it was very surreal. She is such a role model for me. I think she is one of the most impressive women in journalism in Ireland.”

The reaction to the article has been “nothing but positive” she tells us.

“A lot of people are, I think, quite shocked by some of the content of the interviews and the wide variety of things people get up to, but the feedback has been very good.

“It’s nice to hear back from different people from home that I haven’t talked to in a while who have read it, people who didn’t even know I was going to be writing it, and it just popped up on their phone. It was nice to have people reach out and it’s been nothing but positive”.

Faye’s ambitions to become a writer began as a young child, and as a teenager she regularly entered The Clare Champion Short Story competition. She took first place in the senior category in 2016 while in transition year with her story ‘16 Years/16 Lessons’ dealing with passing on words of wisdom to the next generation.

At the time she told us that her words were “basically a letter to every baby that will be born this year about 16 things I’ve learned,” finding inspiration for the story from Róisín Ingle.

Speaking about it now she recalls, “Funnily enough it was based off a Róisín Ingle article that she had written when she was pregnant with her twins. She wrote, I can’t remember exactly, but it was about 30 things that she had learned in her 30 years so I kind of did a similar thing.

“I’m pretty sure I entered the competition four years in a row, and taking part in the competition was the first time that I saw my name in print ever.

“It was the first time I had outside confirmation from somebody that wasn’t my family that I was able to write, and that was honestly very formative for me. It gave me a really big confidence boost to every year place in different positions and to speak with the editor, at the time Austin Hobbs, and he and everybody at the Champion were always very nice to me. It was definitely a very important part of my life. I still have my first place certificate hanging up in my bedroom wall at home.”

Faye is now hoping to pursue a career in journalism when she finishes university saying, “It’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do”.

She continues, “I think there are a lot of really interesting voices coming out in journalism, especially in Ireland, there is a really wide range of different people writing and giving their perspective. I think the journalism I’m looking forward towards is a very open one and a very kind of exciting one.

Former Clare Champion editor Austin Hobbs congratulated Faye on her work with the Irish Times and Róisín Ingle.

“I’m delighted that after such a long time that a young writer who started with us is going on to expand her career in the literary field. The short story competition was hugely successful, it ran for about 10 years and attracted more than 200 entries from students in schools across Clare and South Galway.”