Google users were greeted by a roots-and-shamrock graphic Tuesday on the search engine home page courtesy of a 16-year-old student from Co. Limerick in Ireland.

Evan O’Sullivan-Glynn from St. Munchin's College beat out 2,000 students in the ‘Doodle 4 Google’ Irish Competition to win a laptop for himself and his teacher, a €10,000 Technology Grant for the school, and - perhaps most importantly - his Doodle is on Google’s homepage all over America, Canada, Ireland, Australia and Britain for St. Patrick's Day.
 
Google is famous for its holiday graphics but this was the first time the Internent giant searched for art outside the company.
 
Around 125,000 people voted for their favorite doodle, and IrishCentral got the low down from the winner himself.
 
The letters in the words Google are shamrock plants. Below the surface – a patch of green grass – lie the roots of the shamrocks. The subliminal theme O'Sullivan-Glynn created, using the words Google, is that of the Irish Diaspora – considered to be over 80 million worldwide.     
 
The student began doodling with the lush landscape of Ireland in mind. He said he decided “to just draw away and see where I ended.”
 
"It was only when I was finished the first draft I realized how well the whole design fitted in with the concept of people all over the world with Irish heritage celebrating their connection to Ireland, simple really," O’Sullivan-Glynn said.
 
The project took three days, between doodling, painting with ink and using acrylic paint.

O'Sullivan-Glynn said he drew from his knowledge of relatives in  America and how they felt about living away from Ireland.

One quote in particular struck a chord with him. O’Sullivan-Glynn remembers watching a TV story about the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York a few years ago. “A spectator was asked what he thought of the parade there and his reply was 'I’m half Irish and living in New York but today I feel like I’m fully Irish.' That quote had stuck in my head ever since and it was one of the main thoughts behind the design.”
 
The talented teen has always had an interest in art. “I have always loved thinking up new and different designs for whatever I’m working on and figuring out what colors would work well together. I’m quite good working with my hands and one of my favorite forms of art would be sculpting and carving.”
 
It’s no surprise then that O’Sullivan-Glynn hopes to pursue a career in architecture, or something “where I could design and use my imagination,” he said.