Budding artist Doodles 4 Google

A five-year-old budding artist from Tuam was among the big winners at this year’s Doodle 4 Google competition. Cian Mangan from Cloghan’s Hill National School, Tuam, was the winner of the Group 1 category (ages 4-6) of this sixth annual Google contest.

Cian was up against the competition’s 74 other finalists and won the most public votes of any entry in his age category.

Five year old Cian was presented with his award at a special prize-giving ceremony in Google’s EMEA headquarters in Dublin last week by professional Google doodler, Katy Wu.

Katy, who travelled especially from Google’s offices in Mountain View, also announced the overall winner as Kelly McCabe, an eight year old student from Dublin.

As well as being named top Doodler, Kelly was presented with a Chromebook and a €5,000 scholarship towards her further studies while her school will also receive a €10,000 technology grant from Google, with her teacher, Teresa Lea, also winning a Chromebook.

The theme of this year’s event was ‘My Adventure’. Cian’s winning doodle, entitled ‘Diving for Fun Under the Sea’ was inspired by his love all things that happen under the sea and uses sharks and shipwrecks to give the iconic Google logo a creative twist.

Speaking at the ceremony, professional Google doodler Katy Wu said she was blown away by the talent and creativity shown by the entries.

“What I was also impressed by was the level of enthusiasm for the competition in Ireland. We run Doodle 4 Google in many countries across the world but number and quality of the entries from Irish students was outstanding,” said Katy.

“This is the sixth year of the competition and I continue to be overwhelmed each year by the level of public interest shown. This year we recorded over 120,000 public votes from people voting for their favourite doodle. I would like to express a big thank you to those that voted, the teachers and parents involved, and most especially the 2,390 students who entered,” said John Herlihy, head of Google in Ireland.

A panel of judges including legendary Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, creator of the iconic red and black 1968 Che Guevara poster, chose the 75 finalists for the public vote.

Over 120,000 votes were registered with the highest number of votes in each class group making it through to the overall finals.

You can view all the finalists’ doodles on www.google.ie/doodle4google