11-year-old Barry Hutchison, from Newtownbutler primary school was as the winner of the County Fermanagh Eason Spelling Bee, which took place in Holy Trinity Primary School, Enniskillen.

Barry came out on top against 6 other spelling enthusiasts and will now go on to compete in the Ulster Provincial Spelling Bee final at the end of May. The primary seven pupil loves reading factual books and has read the Harry Potter series four times.

The Eason Spelling Bee is now in its ninth year and encourages kids throughout the country to fall in love with literacy, grow in confidence and expand their vocabulary from an early age.

Brendan Corbett, Group Head of Marketing at Eason, said;

“We’re now in the ninth year of the Eason Spelling Bee and we’re incredibly proud to see it going from strength to strength annually. Each year, the children involved continue to impress us with their level of spelling skill and it’s wonderful to see schools across the country continuing to support this competition.”

Continuing the success of their media partnership, Eason have teamed up again with Cool FM and Downtown Radio who will attend each county final and report back live to the studio. Speaking of the partnership, Kirstie McMurray, Downtown Radio presenter said; “We love working with the Eason Spelling Bee each year and are so proud to support such a great initiative. We can’t wait to meet all the contestants and their supporters around Northern Ireland in the lead up to the big final at the end of May.”

This year, 900 primary schools from across Ireland will host their own in-school Bee competitions, to find their school champion. These competitions lead to County Final Bees which pave the way to four Provincial Finals. The All-Ireland Final will take place in June 2019, where the champion speller will be crowned.

Along with the prestigious title of Eason Spelling Bee 2019 Champion, The Spelling Bee winner will be awarded a goody bag full of books worth £500. The winning school will also receive a collection of books for their library to the value of £7,000.

Keep up-to-date with all the 2019 Spelling Bee news on www.easons.com/spellingbee and @easons #EasonSpellingBee

About Eason

Eason Ltd is the oldest standing book retailer in Northern Ireland selling an extensive range of books, newspapers, magazines, stationery, cards and more. Eason has more than 60 outlets through Ireland and Northern Ireland and you can visit their online store at www.easons.com

Follow Eason on Facebook – Facebook.com/EasonsIreland and Twitter @easons