Brilliant Laois school team wins Battle of Wits
Winning Heywood CS students Éabha Dooley, Anna Kennedy, Mary Kate Drennan and Emily Dunphy
A BRILLIANT secondary school team has won the 2025 Battle of Wits title in Laois.
Heywood Community School transition year (TY) students had all the answers, when they fought a tough table quiz battle to take the overall title.
They will go forward to represent the county with runners-up Portlaoise College at the regional finals in Athlone on 4 December. A team from St Fergal’s College, Rathdowney also put in a great performance to take third place.
The well-named Battle of Wits is a table quiz tournament for TY students, organised by the library services of Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath. The tournament consists of three rounds, with a school round followed by a county final and a regional final.
From sport to science and from literature to pop culture, teams were challenged on their knowledge of a wide variety of topics and certain rounds threw the whole competition wide open again for all schools.
Also taking part this year were Scoil Chriost Rí, Dunamase College, Mountmellick Community School and Clonaslee Community School.
It was a well-earned victory for Heywood CS students Éabha Dooley, Anna Kennedy, Mary Kate Drennan and Emily Dunphy, who overcame a terrific Portlaoise College team made up of Freya Walsh, Leigh O’Callaghan, Zack Carlin and Brian Murphy.
Also doing their school proud were St Fergal’s students Eimear McEvoy, Lucy Ryan, James Hanlon and James O’Toole.
After the exciting county final at Portlaoise Library on 21 November, senior executive librarian Suzanne Carroll said: “We were delighted to welcome students from all corners of the county to this entertaining evening and the response to the initiative was very positive.
“We really appreciated schools giving their students the opportunity to take part and we hope that even more schools will participate and battle for the county title in 2026.”
Part of the Laois Co Council Right to Read Network’s action plan, the initiative was designed to encourage literacy outside formal education settings, helping people to realise their personal, social and educational potential.
