Ken Hennelly, Creative Writing Award 2024/25

Winner: Michael Power, 5th Year

You can download the boy’s work by clicking on their name above or read below.

The prestigous ‘Ken Hennelly Creative Writing Award’ is presented annually at this time in memory of our colleague and teacher. Ken was an inspiration to students and teachers alike, always encouraging creativity and debate in his students. He is fondly remembered by past pupils of his as ‘Ken Hen’ and we are honoured to be in a position to remember his contribution to the College in this way.

We thank Ken’s family for the beautiful perpetual cup that was presented to Michael Power, 6th Year, for his short essay. You can read Michael’s piece below or download it here. We look forward to presenting this great award to more aspiring creative writers in the coming years.

Well done to all!

Read on……………………………………….

Michael Power - Winner

Dr. Elias Morgan was a man of conscience. Compassionate, driven, and meticulous, he had entered the field of medicine not just to practice medicine, but to make people’s live better. From his early years in residency, he carried a personal philosophy “suffering was man’s great enemy, and modern medicine our weapon to bear against it” armed with its diagnostic machines and molecular therapies, medicine provided the sword that could slay it. Colleagues admired his zeal. Patients clung to it. And for the first decade of his career. Elias seemed to justify that faith—until the weight of those good intentions began to collapse under the force of their unintended consequences.

Elias worked at St. Catherine’s, a sprawling urban hospital in a city that had long forgotten how to care for its poorest residents. Many of his patients were uninsured, many elderly, and plenty more were battling multiple chronic illnesses worsened by poverty. He took pride in fighting for them. He lobbied for more beds, better equipment, and grant funding for preventive care. When he spent long nights researching rare symptoms and arguing with insurance companies for experimental treatment he never saw himself as a hero only doing what’s right.

His turning point came with a patient named Ms. Clarinda May. She was seventy-two, a widow, and diabetic with failing kidneys. She had came to the emergency room with a minor infection that had worsened over a weekend. Her blood sugar was out of control, her wounds weren’t healing, and her blood pressure was dangerously low. The attending team debated palliative care, but Elias saw something else a chance to save her. “We owe her more than a comfortable death,” he told the residents. “We owe her a chance.”

Clarinda was admitted to the ICU. Over the course of the next three weeks, Elias led the charge with weapons of daily dialysis, high-dose antibiotics, nutritional support, wound debridement, insulin drips. He ordered specialists to consult including nephrologists, endocrinologists, even a vascular surgeon. He made daily rounds, adjusting medications, monitoring vitals, obsessing over lab values. Her daughter, who had initially begged the staff to “just let Mom rest,” reluctantly agreed to the aggressive care plan. Elias reassured her: “We’re not giving up. This isn’t the end.”

Clarinda had survived, but barely. When she was discharged six weeks later, her infection had cleared, but she could no longer walk. She was confused, occasionally hallucinating, and now dependent on both a feeding tube and permanent catheter. Her daughter wept quietly in the hallway when the social worker told her there were no long-term care beds available. Elias avoided her eyes. He had saved Clarinda. He had done what he was trained to do. But something inside him felt dim and uncertain.

As the months passed, more cases like Clarinda’s emerged. And Elias, always unwilling to yield to death without exhausting every option, continued to fight. A homeless man with sepsis received five surgeries and twenty-one days in intensive care before dying quietly one night while Elias was at home charting notes. A middle-aged woman with stage IV cancer was given experimental immunotherapy that left her in agony for weeks before she finally declined further treatment. A stroke patient was intubated, revived, and re-intubated until his son—who had never been consulted—arrived from out of state and asked the team to stop.

In each case, Elias believed he was doing good. He believed that modern medicine had the tools to fix broken bodies, to prolong life, to avoid the finality of failure. “If we have a chance, we should take it,” he would often say. “What else are we here for?” But the faces of the families, the haunted eyes of his residents, and the mounting number of readmissions told a different story. These weren’t victories—they were postponements. And in some cases, they were avoidable suffering disguised as care.

The real crisis came when St. Catherine’s, under pressure from both administration and insurers, initiated a review of aggressive interventions in end-of-life cases. Elias was called into a meeting with a hospital ethics committee. Charts were presented. Costs were laid out. Outcomes were reviewed. He listened in stunned silence as his decisions—his attempts to save lives—were recast as examples of moral overreach, even harm. One of the committee members, an older palliative care nurse, put it gently: “Sometimes, in trying to do everything, we forget to ask what the patient would want. We forget that sometimes, less is mercy.”

That night, Elias didn’t sleep. He walked the empty hospital corridors and sat briefly in the ICU, watching machines hum and blink. He remembered a lecture from medical school: primum non nocere—first, do no harm. It had always seemed too simple, too cautious. But now, he began to wonder if it was the caution itself that he had neglected. Had he, in his relentless drive to heal, become blind to suffering?

When Clarinda’s daughter wrote him a letter six months later, it was not filled with the gratitude he had expected. It was polite, restrained, but piercing in its honesty. “My mother lives in a state she would have never wanted,” it read. “She cannot speak. She cannot move. She cries without making a sound. I know you meant to help her. But I hope you understand that saving a life is not the same as preserving a person.”

The words settled into him like dust on glass—quiet, but obscuring. Elias didn’t stop doing medicine. But he had changed. He began to ask different questions. He learnt palliative care. He initiated conversations about end-of-life preferences on the first day of admission. He had learnt to recognize the limits of medicine not as failures, but as moments of clarity. He still fought for his patients—but now, he also fought with them, making space for their voices, even when it meant choosing comfort over cure.

In time, he began to mentor younger physicians on this new approach. He told them the story of Clarinda May. He spoke of the agony of realizing that harm can wear the face of help. He warned them that intention does not absolve consequence. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he told one class of interns. “And in medicine, that road is often sterilized, well-lit, and paved with protocols and passion. But if we do not stop to ask why we are doing what we’re doing—and who it’s truly for—we risk becoming the very thing we swore to fight against.”

Years later, as he sat at Clarinda’s memorial service, Elias watched her daughter speak to a small crowd of family and staff. She thanked the caregivers, but more importantly, she spoke of dignity—how hard it was to find, and how easy it was to lose when others believed they knew what was best. Elias bowed his head. He did not speak. He had said enough.

Daniel Griffin - 2nd place

A Trip Down Memory Lane

It was a bright foggy morning with a breeze the kind that makes you feel calm and alive. She walked on the street her worn heels clicking on the cold stone of the sun kissed road.

A thousand thoughts swirled through her head. “why am I here?” What have I done?” The faint sounds of carts as people went about their business on the old road . Yes, the road has seen many a person over the year. The moss-covered ruins where houses stood. The sun glistens on the frost covered stones and the smell of dew from the fields and ditches.

She is walking aimlessly waiting longing for home. The smell of her mother’s brown bread from the rayburn cooker her father sitting on the chair smoking his pipe the thick tobacco smoke a gentle cloud in the room its sickly-sweet smell wafting towards her nose. His foot tapping on the old oak floors her mother humming an indistinguishable song that she can’t bring to mind.

The beautiful scene she walks by as the fog clouds the road ahead the faint silhouette of trees hiding behind it playing a game of hide and seek with the dawn.

She rambles on thinking of her husband sitting in his chair waiting for her to walk through the door she walked in his eyes lifting gently from his latest book. They haven’t been married long but he always says. “God Ada you’re as beautiful as the day I met you”. She always took the book and placed it on the pine table. She turned the radio on and pulled him from his chair and they danced each other around the room the light bouncing of the leaves out front on the walls.

But here she is still walking in those old heels a faded green dress clashing with her vibrant red hair a comfortable wearing but out of date by today’s standards.

She ambles down the country road, not a soul to the passer by, but practically teeming with people through her eyes as old warm faded memories blend with the silhouette of the road before her. The road behind her once again shrouding in with fog the light clawing its way to her, sending a slight shiver to her back, radiating off of her white hair. The only thing is the here and the now, those ruins filled with people to her, empty for years; people have forgotten. Those Dubs building over Clares she says to herself. For the world has forgotten but her mind a whirlwind of memories. Her husband’s aunt Maggie Clare barley cold she says. As the ruins of the sheds around the new build show the gentle but sharp passing of time. The ivy reclaiming the cold grey stone paler for the lack rain back to the ground. The words of the priest at her husband’s funeral echoed. Dust to dust ashes to ashes. We come from dust and to dust we shall return. The sprites young woman that started walking this road now breaks down leaning against the old iron gate sobbing. She is now an old woman the shadow breaks with light and her tears are illuminated. She wants to look back down the road but alas it is obscured by the fog only a hum of sunshine remains. Her sobbing breaks we were married for a hundred years I’d trade them all for to be whisked round my kitchen floor. She walks down holding a book. A faded cover and yellowed pages she walks on till she is but a shadow. Muttering endlessly her daughters and grandchildren bound to do the same in time. The world stops but she goes on and on.

Darragh Rowe - 3rd Place

Using my voice for good

9:00 AM, Monday morning, as the bell rings out, hustling and bustling as students rush to classes, I groan as I rise out of my seat. To my left, a fight breaks out, students roar, laugh and howl. To my right, two boys around my age dealing substances right under the headmasters’ nose. As I turn to walk towards science class alone, a barrage of paper flies beyond my hair. This is not what those were told from the outside. This was not the glory I hoped for. This was hell on earth.

On my first day in the Hopeful Sons Secondary School, I was shown the freshly polished, high-end tech on display. Me and my best friend Brian were excited and prepared to be turned from boys to men. We were welcomed by kind hearts by the friendly teachers and older students. All was going well, until in November of last year, where we got news that the school had been sold. As we returned the next day, instead of going to our first class as normal, we were ushered into the assembly hall. As we were chatting to each other, wondering what was happening, we
heard loud, booming footsteps. A large stocky man emerged from the hallway.

All the students continued chatting until we heard a roar, ‘QUIET!’ ‘My name is Brother Stevenson and I will be the new headmaster of this establishment’ Brian and I looked at each other. This did not sound good. ‘I realise that things worked differently before today but there will be some changes around here’ confirming our fears. ‘The Christian Brothers will run this school from now on and will continue by MY rules’. Ever since that day, life in this school has been the worst year of my life.

As I sit down in the right corner of maths class, I watch my classmate Eric come into class, crying his eyes out. Behind him, the usual suspects, Oscar, Ryan and Michael. Everyone knew not to mess with them as they were the biggest and strongest in the year. As Eric sat down beside me, I felt terrible for my classmate. His shoes were scuffed, trousers ripped and blood ran down his face. I wanted to say something but knew the consequences. After yet another maths class of no work, we walked to the cafeteria for lunch. Eric was alone and so was I so we walked there together. After collecting my dailyorder of cold shepherd’s pie, I returned to my seat only to find Eric missing. As I looked out the window, I see him forced into a circle before, minutes later, returning ragged and bruised. It was then that I decided to march towards Brother Stevenson’s office. I burst through the door, before taking a seat across from him, demanding a change in the way things were run. Less than a minute later, I was marched out by the scruff of the neck as Brother Stevenson continued his call about cattle prices. It was clear that I was never going to get the message through to the teachers. There was only one thing I could do. I had to stand on my own two feet.

The next class was English, and as we waited for the teacher’s arrival. Eric once again was flung through the door. This time I stood up. Everyone looked confused as I approached the three bullies. It was then that I said the most important word someone can say, ‘Stop’, At first it looked as if they were going to laugh. But then, one by one, my other classmates rose to their feet to stand up to bullying and in that moment, we knew that things were about to change.