Ficheall.ie
Primary Teachers Promoting Chess

Register for Ficheall Tournaments

How & When Do I Register?

All schools are invited in September/October (via Education Centre & Ficheall Mailing Lists) to register for our Féile tournaments. It is €50 to enter a team of 8 and schools may enter a max of 4 teams (32 players in total). You can register by clicking on the Google Form above. From September ’23, all payments are to be made via the Registration Form only. 

Entering teams into Féile Fichille is a two-step process, the first of which is to register above.

DEADLINE: The deadline for registration is the third Friday in October every year.

The second step, once registration and entry fees have been received, is to enter your school’s team names and pupil names. This is done in November when you will receive an email with a form to enter the names. These names are necessary to run off the tournament.

What Are Ficheall Tournaments?

At Ficheall, we organise two kinds of tournaments for schools every year – online tournaments in November on the Lichess platform, which act as preparation for a school to attend a Féile Fichille. A Féile Fichille is a one-day, fun and friendly, meet-and-greet style chess tournament organised by Ficheall; the volunteer network of primary teachers in Ireland. The tournament is designed to be non-competitive – no medals, no prizes, no trophies and no rankings displayed or shared at the tournament. It is simply an opportunity for students to represent their school as part of a team (and wear their school jerseys/colours) and experience a chess tournament. Ficheall organise a chess arbiter to attend all Féile Fichille tournaments. The chess arbiter organises all 6 rounds of chess and adjudicates on any disagreements (so that teachers don’t have to). All schools leave with a unique certificate for their school. 

We’ve Registered, What’s Next?

Many teachers, when introducing chess to their class/schools, run through the 10 chess lessons (SPHE curriculum-linked) in Term 1 and then, in the spring, the pupils are rewarded with a day out to a Féile Fichille for their endevaours.

  • Our chess lessons web page is packed with instructional videos, games, slides and more.
  • Follow @Ficheall_ie on twitter and join our Mailing List to stay tuned to chess updates throughout the year.
  • Take a look at the Ficheall Map of registered schools – you might find one local to your school to get some local support and arrange a friendly tournament nearby.

Our online tournaments in November on the Lichess platform allow children to pit their wits against other children around the country while awaiting their big day out in the spring. For more info on Online Tournaments, jump to our ‘Online Chess (Nov)‘ page, next in the Tournaments menu.

Should you wish to learn more about preparing your pupils to attend their Féile Fichille, jump to our ‘Pre Féile (Dec)‘ page in the Tournaments menu.

Interested in Getting Involved?

As Ficheall is a network comprised entirely of primary school teachers volunteering their free time, we are always happy when teachers look to get more involved. This can be managing the mic with another teacher as a Tournament Cohost or perhaps you feel your school has the perfect hall to host a tournament. However, you’d like to get involved, we’d love to here from you. Get in touch here.