Evanna ready for Hogwarts
Wednesday February 08 2006
WITH Celebrity Big Brother rumours and tales of hungry hacks flashing large cheques, it certainly wasn’t an average day for the Greenhills’ girls last Thursday.
For those who hadn’t heard on the grapevine, that Evanna Lynch had won a part in Harry Potter: The Order of The Phoenix, it was only when they arrived at school that the news broke.
Within minutes of the doors opening at the modern school, hordes of reporters and photographers descended, although they were kept at a distance from the teenagers.
The talented second year student herself was spotted being escorted around the leafy school grounds by two burly security guards, who looked more like part of a rock star’s entourage than protection for a 14-year-old.
The Big Brother connection came from Lizzie Butterly (13), who said she had been told that one of Evanna’s bodyguards had just finished working on the Channel 4 television show.
‘Both of them were huge men, both tall and wide, and we were told that one of them had just finished guarding the celebrities during the Celebrity Big Brother show,’ said the Togher girl.
The rumour mill, always a hotbed of gossip at any teenage school, went into overdrive during the long school day.
Milling around the gates as the day ended, dozens of girls, joined by a few boys from St Joseph’s CBS, seemed dazed by the attention of the world’s media.
It had been an unreal day according to Nicole Byrne from Ballypark. The 14-year-old said she had been told that one of Evanna’s friends had been offered money by reporters who were looking for information.
‘They were shouting through the front gates and one said that she could have e1,000, if she just told them exactly where the Lynch family lived.’
The hysteria of some of the press pack seemed to have rubbed off on some of the older girls.
They would not speak to the Drogheda Independent claiming they had been told (by other reporters) that they would get in trouble if they did.
Principal Padraig Byrne certainly had no problem speaking to the local paper and although he seemed tired, he was happy that his school had coped with the fuss of the day.
Then he gathered together a group of first and second year girls and headed back inside the school to get ready for the next normal school day.
