Forget the Olympics, the World Cup and the PGA Tour. There is only one world championship that counts this September. And no, I’m not talking about the World Wrestling Championships in Zagreb, fascinating and all as that promises to be. Welcome, instead, to the world of competitive puzzling where there is no such thing as a jigsaw with too much sky. These competitors could do 1,000-piece jigsaws with their eyes closed if they had to.
More than 3,400 power puzzlers from at least 72 countries will descend on Valladolid, Spain when the lid is lifted on the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship on September 15th. The good news for jigsaw groupies is that Ireland will be ably represented by two dozen jigsaw enthusiasts, or dissectologists if you want to be scientific about it.
Looking through the list of Irish entrants, your eye might alight on one name – Colin Farrell. Imagine those famous bushy eyebrows puzzling over what shade of grass goes where? The involvement of one of Ireland’s leading men would really raise the visibility of jigsaw puzzling worldwide. But it looks like the actor has a pesky film premiere happening on the opening day of the championships so he is unlikely to show up with a jigsaw under his oxter. Which is probably just as well, because the jigsaw puzzling specialist Colin Farrell will undoubtedly showcase the skills of Ireland’s jigsaw community far better than the actor ever could.
Ireland’s entrants also include one very bright hope – primary schoolteacher Emma Quirke. The Kerry native won the national championships in the UK and Portugal this year. Last year’s world championship marked her debut in the world of competitive jigsaw making. She came fourth in the semi-finals so she’s hoping to do even better this year.
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Unlike those of us who took to jigsaws with gusto for a brief moment during the Covid-19 pandemic, she’s no Johnny-come-lately to this world. When her six-year-old classmates were seeking help to slot a four-piece jigsaw into place, she was doing 1,000-piece puzzles and wondering what all the fuss was about.
To win the UK championship, she completed a 500-piece jigsaw in 41 minutes and 55 seconds. In case you feel like challenging her time, the jigsaw was a Ravensburger puzzle depicting teapots and cups – the perfect picture for any Irish competitor.
The following month she took up the gauntlet at the Portuguese championship. Some superstitious people believe that meeting a red-haired woman at the start of a journey will doom your trip but when Quirke was presented with a jigsaw depicting a red-haired woman playing a piano in the Portuguese final, it was surely a good omen. She pieced the red-haired woman together in jig time and finished the 500-piece jigsaw in 43 minutes and 17 seconds – almost 10 minutes quicker than her nearest challenger.
Everyone approaches jigsaw practice differently but she prefers to do one 500-piece puzzle a day and a few more at the weekend if time allows it. She also meets her pairs partner and team partners once a month so they can sharpen their strategies.
An inevitable byproduct of this passion for puzzles is that you accumulate many jigsaws. Quirke estimates that she has about 300 jigsaw puzzles and no doubt will return from Spain with a fresh haul.
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Along with fellow competitor Siobhán Quinn from Tipperary, she was involved in setting up the Irish Jigsaw Puzzle Association last year. They can be found on Facebook and Instagram and they surely have one of the most wholesome social media feeds in the world. People post photos of their completed jigsaws and others congratulate them. That’s all. No crowing from people with faster fingers and no trolling if someone loses a jigsaw piece.
The association runs jigsaw events around the country and plans are afoot for the first Irish jigsaw puzzle championship next year. Quirke is also getting the next generation hooked on the art of solving jigsaws. She runs an after-school jigsaw puzzle club for pupils at the Co Wicklow school where she teaches.
Fans of high adrenaline sports may wonder how people get their thrills from this seemingly sedate activity. When jigsaw sales soared during Covid, psychologists suggested it was a coping mechanism to deal with the huge anxiety people were feeling. Solving a jigsaw puzzle gave people a sense of control in a chaotic and unpredictable world.
Well then, has there ever been a better time to crack open a new jigsaw and get stuck in? Piece by piece you might find your inner peace.
