Teenager's shamrock and roots design googled by millions

ON THE WEB:A DESIGN by a Limerick teenager was viewed by millions of people as it appeared on the home page of Google's website yesterday for St Patrick's Day.

The logo was designed by Evan O’Sullivan Glynn (16) from St Munchin’s College, Limerick, who won an Irish “Doodle 4 Google” schools competition.

The logo, called Irish Roots, was displayed in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Australia all day yesterday. It depicted the word “google” covered in shamrock with roots from the bottom.

The transition year student yesterday described the experience as “mind-blowing”. “It is hard to comprehend that so many people were looking at it,” he said.

The young student’s win was honoured during the parade in Limerick yesterday as his fellow students carried a Google banner in the parade.

The design represented “how shamrocks trace back to their roots in the same way that Irish people throughout the world trace back to Ireland, their Ireland, my Ireland,” Evan said. Evan hopes to study architecture or design when he finishes school.

Google regularly changes its logo to celebrate different people, special days and events, such as Charles Darwin’s birthday on February 12th. These “doodles” are usually designed by Google’s master “doodler” Dennis Hwang.

“Ireland is renowned throughout the world for its culture in arts and literature. It is fantastic to see the fabulous creativity which almost 2,000 students who entered the competition showed,” Mr Hwang said.

The entries were narrowed down to 103 county finalists and some 125,000 public votes were cast in early February to pick the winners. St Munchin’s College received a €10,000 technology grant as well as a laptop for Evan and his teacher.

Irish-related terms made up six of the top 10 words used on micro-blogging site twitter.com for much of yesterday. According to trends on twitter.com, these were Paddy’s day, Guinness, I’m Irish, Ireland, Green and Happy St.

The home page of social networking site Bebo.com was also dedicated to all things Irish yesterday.

Users in the UK, US and Ireland who logged on yesterday saw a montage of all things Irish. They were directed to a “bebo hearts Ireland” profile to connect Irish users around the world.