Laughter the best medicine at first national championship

Who wouldn’t want to have the last laugh? Certainly not Copenhagen resident Coilín Ó hAiseadha, who has become Ireland’s first laughter champion after a closely giggled contest in Galway.

As for Clare woman Annette Mulqueen, who would not envy her happy pupils in Ruan national school? The primary teacher has been confirmed as holder of the funniest female laugh on the island.

The six-round contest, hosted yesterday in Galway’s Harbour Hotel, was in aid of Jigsaw, the support service for young people.

In the final round, the last three male competitors fell about the place repeatedly, after they were asked to demonstrate their best version of a laughing fit.

Coilín Ó hAiseadha, Gary Phelan and the appropriately named Jimmy Bray thumped the floor with their fists and rolled around in tears of happy hysteria. It took the judging panel just a few minutes to declare Ó hAiseadha overall champion.

Contest organiser Siobhán Kavanagh, PhD student at NUI Galway’s school of psychology explained that marks were given by the judges on the basis of audience reaction.

A video of the event by Robert McDonald can be viewed online from tomorrow by logging onto
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