Ballyshannon woman launches Story Cup competition to celebrate new business

A Ballyshannon businesswoman has launched a nationwide storytelling competition to help children get creative away from screens.

Julie Dowling, founder of Fudge & Gandol, a new Donegal-based children’s creativity company built around storytelling.

The company motto, as Julie said, was “screens off, imaginations on,” which has helped inspire her to launch the “Story Cup.”

To celebrate the company’s launch, Fudge and Gandol has opened entries for the first national Story Cup. Primary school teachers can request free starter kits to help their classes take part. Judges will look for imagination, originality and heart. Winners will receive Smyths Toys vouchers and a personalised Fudge and Gandol story with the child as the hero.

Children can enter the ‘Story Cup’ competition individually or with their class. They simply create a story inspired by Fudge & Gandol’s new Story Cards.  Entries are now open and close on 26th January 2026.

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Julie commented: “Our story cards offer a fresh storytelling experience which lets children’s imagination run free. They can build their own stories centred around magical characters, places and other ‘props’ in the cards.”

The idea began, said Julie, as a bedtime routine with her children, Fiadh and Daniel. That routine led to the creation of a full set of Story Cards so other families could try the same idea. Each pack includes illustrated characters, locations and "story sparks" from Myrndale, a gentle and fantastical world inspired by the Irish countryside. Children pick a few cards and shape the plot in their own way, telling it aloud, writing it down or acting it out.

"When the screens go off, children take over," commented Julie. "Their imaginations burst with ideas. Adults can overthink storytelling, but children do not. They grab one small detail and turn it into a whole tale. They are the drivers, and that is what we want to encourage, because creativity at this age grows into confidence and real self-expression.

“Parents say children get absorbed in the characters and naturally start building their own worlds. Many return to the cards again and again because they enjoy shaping their own adventures and often place themselves directly into the story.

"Kids take the stories in wild directions," Julie says. "There are no rules. That is the joy of it."

More information about Fudge and Gandol’s Story Cards and Story Cup entry details is available at www.fudgeandgandol.com.