Donegal Railway Heritage Museum have announced the details of their Reconnecting Through Culture Schools Art Competition, part of a wider Shared Island funded project in association with the Alley Theatre Strabane.
The competition asks students across the North-West to produce an artwork portraying a form of transport of their choosing - be it a bus, a boat, a train, or a hot air balloon! They’re also asking for a short description explaining what the mode of transport symbolises in the artwork. The car packed up for the holidays might represent the freedom of summer, for example, or the ship on a stormy sea could symbolise the power of nature.
There are three categories in the competition – Primary School Juniors, Primary School Seniors and Secondary School Students. There are generous prizes of up to €150 in vouchers for the winners, and the school of each winner will receive an additional €100 towards supplies. All placed entries will be displayed as part of temporary exhibition in the Alley Theatre, Strabane, and the artists will be invited to a prizegiving ceremony in September 2026.
Information about the competition has been sent to schools and teachers across Donegal and Tyrone along with a suggested lesson plan that discusses the representation of railways in nineteenth and twentieth-century art, with guided analysis of well-known paintings from artists like J.W.M. Turner.
Museum Manager Marty Gilroy said:
This competition and the associated lesson materials are intended to encourage children and young people on both sides of the border to think about how different forms of transport affect our lives and our history. It also encourages them to learn about how different forms of transport might represent different things in art, both in their own works and those of world-renowned artists. Overall, this will help develop all kinds of different skills, from critical thinking and visual analysis to creativity and expression, and we hope it will help students engage with the under-discussed but fascinating relationship between infrastructure, art, our world, and our everyday lives.
The competition runs until Friday 22
nd May. Full details are available at donegalrailway.com, and further inquiries can be directed to
manager@donegalrailway.com.