Irish International Linguistics Olympiad Team Selected

Ireland’s top four secondary school Linguistic problem-solvers win the chance to represent their country at the International Linguistics Olympiad in India in July.

Four secondary school students from across the island of Ireland have been selected to test their language decoding skills against the world’s best at the International Linguistics Olympiad in Mysore, India in July. The students, from Dublin and Donegal, finished ahead of 100 opponents in the All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad (AILO) Finals, which were recently held at Trinity College Dublin.
Run by the Science Foundation Ireland funded ADAPT Centre, the All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad (AILO) aims to inspire the next generation of multilingual technology graduates, who possess a combination of language competency and problem solving expertise.
Pádraig Sheehy of Gonzaga College, Ranelagh (Dublin) is the Senior Champion. He will be joined in India by fellow team members Claire O’Connor of St. Louis Rathmines (Dublin), Richard Neville of St. Andrews College, Booterstown (Dublin) and Dónal Farren of St. Eunan’s College (Donegal) who finished second, third and fourth respectively in the Senior competition.
The Junior competition was won by Alexander Harding of Maynooth Post Primary School (Kildare). Tristan l’Ansen Sparks of Methodist College (Belfast), Aleksandr Gusev of Royal School (Cavan) and Ross Beatty of St. Andrew’s College, Booterstown (Dublin) clinched the 2nd, 3rd anad 4th place spots.
Olympiad National Coordinator Dr. Cara Greene of ADAPT said, “Pádraig, Claire, Richard and Dónal will do Ireland proud in India. They will be challenged with some of the toughest linguistic puzzles in the world during the individual and team competitions at the international Olympiad.”
Finalists have received tuition from experts at the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology, a €110 million academia-industry research centre developing advanced technology to adapt and personalise digital content and services to the needs of global users. They will receive further tuition before they leave to represent Ireland in the Finals in India later this year.