Ireland

Co Donegal school pupils' entry released as official Ed Sheeran music video following global competition

A scene from the video for Ed Sheeran's 'Magical, filmed by pupils of Finn Valley College in Co Donegal.
A scene from the video for Ed Sheeran's 'Magical, filmed by pupils of Finn Valley College in Co Donegal.

Ed Sheeran has released a new music video filmed by and starring pupils of a Co Donegal school.

Students at Finn Valley College in Stranorlar filmed the video for the track 'Magical' earlier this year, and it was officially released on Tuesday.

Described as "a school love story with a Romeo and Juliet twist", the video had almost 30,000 views within six hours of being released on Sheeran's YouTube channel.

The global star's record label, Warner Music, had launched a competition for fans to submit videos to accompany tracks on his seventh studio, Autumn Variations, which was released last month and reached number 1 in the UK album charts, and number 2 in Ireland

Sheeran said of fans that he was "keen to see how they interpreted the music".

Finn Valley special needs assistant, Edel Temple, decided to enter the competition after seeing it announced on the star's Instagram page, and was later invited to chat with Warner Music about her ideas.

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However, when filming the video, it was decided not to tell the pupils what the project was for, in order to capture "natural performances" from them.

Speaking to the BBC, Ms Temple said she wanted to film the video "as a way to tell of just how amazing the school, the pupils and the area is".

Teacher Tina Garry, who was also in the project, said: "You can really tell that in the performance, they are really natural, the pupils are being themselves, they were really having fun with it.

"We felt that had we told them just how massive a project it was, then the nerves might have come in."

The 13 other successful entries selected as official videos were submitted from countries including Japan, Brazil, India and New Zealand.

Speaking of the final line-up, Sheeran said there were "so many wonderful submissions,” and he thanked “each and every fan who made these videos so special.

"I love them and hope you will too," he added.