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POTENTIAL -A Daniel O’Mahony short story

Potential

A clear voice cut through the heavy air of the courtroom. “All rise!”
The muffled shuffling of feet and shrill scraping of chairs accompanied Tadgh
as he stood. While the ancient judge shuffled into place, Tadgh took the
opportunity to glance across the sea of faces that stood behind him. Most of
them stared blankly back at him, but some grinned broadly when he locked
eyes with them. The ones that grinned, without exception, sported cheap
badges they had brought from the vendor just outside the door. Emblazoned
across these badges was the phrase “Imprison the Pot.” Pot was short for
Potential, the idealistic name given to people with enhanced abilities. When
they were first discovered people thought they would be the next stage of
evolution.


Then they realised you had to be born with these abilities. That’s when
Potentials stopped being something to strive for and became something to be
jealous of. And then something to hate.
Nowadays people liked to pretend that Potential were treated fairly. Treated
with respect. The only Potentials that are treated with respect are the ones
who hide there powers. Hide who they are.
“Defendant, please stay standing. All be seated.” The cacophony of sound
once again filled the room.
“Defendant, you have been charged with the destruction of public and
private property and assault. How do you plead?”
Of course the destruction of property comes first.
Tadgh held his head high and answered. “Guilty only of attempting to save


lives” A satisfied murmur ran through the crowd. They had been looking
forward to seeing him suffer.
“Order, order” the judge lazily drawled, banging his gavel. “Due to the
defendants guilty plea, it is not necessary to show any evidence. I shall now
move to sentencing.”
Tadgh felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He wasn’t following the correct
procedure and nobody had even blinked. As the judge lazily read out his
sentence, the anger in his chest grew. “Stay calm, stay calm” He whispered to
himself.
“Defendant, do you have something to say?”
“Well, today can’t get any worse” he thought.
“I have a name, Your Honour” He said as blood began to leak from the Judges
nose.

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#StayHome Creativity Ideas

Thank you to all contributing teachers and students

GENERAL

https://www.rte.ie/culture/

http://www.bbc.com/culture

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/culture

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture

https://www.nytimes.com/section/arts

MUSIC

GUITAR LESSONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlDChbSe7b8

This is a good video tutorial on Chasing Cars that the lads have been learning in the Prometheans guitar lessons, with Mr. O’Sullivan, Ms L. O’Donovan and Mr. McWalters
If you weren’t able to join in school, maybe you’d like to try it now. It would be a good time to take it up, if you have a guitar. It’s great way to pass the time in an enjoyable way.
In the Google Classroom you’ll find the accompanying handouts that Ms O’Donovan made out. It’s basically just three chords. Great choice of song to start with.

These lesson were highly recommended by a student.

Singing:  www.singireland.ie

Classical Music Archive https://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Classical

Music Reviews:

www.hotpress.com

http://www.rollingstone.com

http://www.theguardian.com/music

Opera: The New York Metropolitan Opera is going to have * free streams *. Each night at 7:30 pm EST a new opera will be shown, and will be available for 20 hours. The page is * www.metopera.org *
This week’s schedule:
– Monday: Carmen
– Tuesday: La Boheme
– Wednesday: Il Trovatore
– Thursday: La Traviata
– Friday: La Fille du Regiment
– Saturday: Lucia di Lammermoor
– Sunday: Eugene Onegin

The Berlin Philharmonic opens its home, the Philarmonie, for free, due to the coronavirus epidemic that is ravaging the planet, the Berlin Philharmonic has decided to counter this forced silence by allowing free access to its Digital Concert Hall for one month
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNq2eaZ vd5PsY9bF9QTeJ30IRscWVT_4c

In case someone is bored and does not know what to do at home, there are a whole series of initiatives underway:

• Festival I stay at home and quarantine fest: many artists through their Instagram profiles will do live shows of about 30 min as if it were a private acoustic concert. The schedules: https://todoindie.com/yo-me-quedo-en-casa-festival/
https://twitter.com/CuarentenaFest/status/12383797220 96115714?s=20

THEATRE
• You can also watch theater online, these are the available works: http://teatroteca.teatro.es/opac/#indice

LITERATURE AND WRITING

• Some authors, such as the cartoonist El Torres or the authors of El bosque have uploaded all their books / comics for free for those who want to enjoy them, the same has been done by your favorite author * https: //twitter.com/ElTorres72 /status / 1238204925550657536? S = 08, http://elvosque.es/comic/*

Free audio books for kids and teenagers while schools are closed:

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

This is a really great opportunity for the writers among you.

You should definitely enter this:

Short Story Competition

Fighting Words is a great resource and they want your stories

https://www.fightingwords.ie/

FILM

https://www.youtube.com/user/ChrisConnor91/about

Anyone who has an interest in vfx or just film making in general should definitely check out Chris Connor on YouTube (link above). He has quite a few tutorials on how to create some awesome looking effects and he has a “Filmmaker reacts” series covering some amazing short film and scenes.

40 Day Film School With Mark Cousins

• If you are a member of the library you have the possibility of accessing the catalog of efilm, a Netflix of the bibles, each community has its own catalog: https://efilm.online/

PHOTOGRAPHY

https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/ten-best-photographs-of-the-day

ART
One for the artists among us:

http://www.glucksman.org/exhibitions/creativity-at-home

RESEARCH

Sometimes we forget the role that research plays in the creation and inspiration of great art. Check out these great sites

Glasnevin Cemetery https://www.glasnevinmuseum.ie/index.cfm

Smithsonian Museums https://www.si.edu/museums

History Ireland site https://www.historyireland.com

History Extra
https://t.co/o1ZMnLSYwo?amp=1

http://irishmuseums.org/text-pages/irishmuseumsonline-content-and-resources