On the evening of Saturday 11 February 2017, 15 acts took to the stage for the Grand Final of Wexford Has Talent at Clayton Whites Hotel.
Performers as young as 13 showcased skills in music, singer-songwriter performances, dance, and vocal harmony.
Guest MC Councillor George Lawlor introduced the finalists as they performed in front of a panel of four judges: Sophie Wilson, Catherine ‘Biddy’ Walsh, Vicki Clancy, and Carmel Corish Wallace. A full house of 600 people attended the event.
The finalists included ballerina Sorcha Finn, singer Éabha Carty, 7th Fret harmony group, singer Will Troy Walsh, singer Caoimhe Troy, singer Jirat O’Neill, operatic singer Emma Hore, singer Hayley Crosbie, singer and guitarist Aaron McStein, and pole artist Danielle Reck. Other finalists included 19-year-old singer Adi Roche O’Leary, 15-year-old musical theatre performer Caoimhe Boyle from Foulkesmills, 13-year-old singer Aoife Goodison, and Luke Hayes, a 19-year-old singer from Wexford Town. Hip hop dance troupe Hysteria, also from Wexford Town, completed the line-up.
7th Fret won the 2017 Grand Final title. The group comprises David McDonnell from Kilmore, Ciara Cullinane from Wexford Town, Holly Rossiter from Barntown, Robert Murphy from Barntown, Hazel Devereux from Wexford Town, and Daniel Furlong from Taghmon. Sponsor Jim Hayes from The Wexford People presented them with a €2,000 cash prize. The judges awarded two runner-up prizes of €500 each to pole artist Reck and dance troupe Hysteria, which includes Shauna Brady, Shona Kavanagh, Corey Lacey, Ashligh Godkin, Sarah Boyle, Stephanie Nolan, Cathlain Stamp, and Ava McGarry, all from Wexford Town.
They sang “Send Me On My Way” by Rusted Roots at the Grand Final. The group formed after they performed together in a school production of Les Misérables in late 2015. Since then, they have performed at many charity gigs, including the Wexford Spiegeltent Festival and Cycle against Suicide, and they recently won Taghmon’s Got Talent. Last year, they made it to the final of Wexford Has Talent.
This was the third year of the competition. The winners of the inaugural competition in 2015 were Wexford-based band Fit For Kings, who later released their debut single “Heartache”. Gymnast Tara Doyle Robinson won the title in 2016 and has since performed at select events and in top-class acrobatic circuses. She took to the stage and impressed the audience at the Wexford Has Talent Grand Final while the judges deliberated on Saturday evening.
Commenting on the evening, one of the event organisers, Kilian Duigan, said: “We are delighted with the massive hit that this show has been; we would like to offer our congratulations to all of the finalists, we know the judges had a very tough decision to make on Saturday evening. We would also like to thank all the contestants from the very beginning, right from the auditions to the final, our judges, our MC George Lawlor, our kind sponsors and all the Sarsfields crew, without whom we would not have been able to run such a professional series of shows.”
For further details on the event, see wexfordhastalent.com