Siobhán Flynn and Sarah Davy win Mairtín Crawford Awards

Irish Times

06-06-2025

In The Irish Times tomorrow, Orlaine McDonald tells Mia Levitin about her award-winning debut novel. Anna Carey has researched and compiled the perfect summer reading list for you. And there is a Q&A with Sarah Maria Griffin about her new YA novel.
Reviews are: Sally Hayden on We Came by Sea: Stories of a Greater Britain by Horatio Clare; Kevin Power on The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong; Claire Hennessy on the best new YA fiction; Naoise Dolan on Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid; Malachi O'Doherty on Death in Derry by Jonathan Trigg; Paul D'Alton on The Sleep Room by Jon Stock; Henrietta McKervey on Our Song by Anna Carey;
Eilís Ní Dhuibhne on Best Friends by Andrew Meehan; Val Nolan on Walking Ghosts by Mary O'Donnell;
Laura Slattery on The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay by Christopher Clarey; Jessica Traynor on This Interim Time by Oona Frawley; and Rachel Ashcroft on Inside the Stargazer's Palace: The Transformation of Science in 16th-Century Northern Europe by Violet Moller.
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Siobhán Flynn from Dublin and Northumberland-based Sarah Davy have won this year's Mairtín Crawford Awards for Poetry and Short Stories respectively at an award ceremony in the Crescent Arts Centre last night as part of the Belfast Book Festival.
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The winners each receive £500 cash, plus a 'time to write' package which includes a three-night stay at a hotel in Belfast and four days of dedicated writing space at The Crescent Arts Centre.
Flynn, who began writing quite late in life, won the 2022 Cúirt New Writing Prize for Poetry and a John Hewitt Bursary in 2023. Davy, who works for Hexham Book Festival, won the Finchale Prize for Short Fiction at the Northern Writers Awards in 2023. Short Story judges were Belfast authors Lucy Caldwell and Wendy Erskine. The Poetry Award was judged by Kathleen McCracken and Dawn Watson.
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'Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither' – King Lear.
Have we no more active rights over life, birth and death? The attitude of passive acceptance of birth and death, preached by Edgar to his father in King Lear, has been variously challenged in the modern period.
The nature of human rights in the matter have been hotly contested: the right to life of the unborn child as against women's reproductive rights, the principle of the sanctity of all human life clashing with the right to a chosen, dignified death.
The title for this year's
Hubert Butler Essay Prize
invites reflection on the ethical questions raised by such debates. First prize is €1,500. The closing date is July 4th.
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The Irish Writers Centre is packing its literary bags once more, embarking on a nationwide roadshow that will see it travel to five festivals across the island in 2025 – from Belfast to Bantry, Wexford to Waterford, before returning to Dublin in November for the Dublin Book Festival.
Fresh from appearances at Galway's Cúirt and the University of Limerick's Creative Writing Festival, the Centre continues its mission to support writers of all backgrounds and at all stages of their careers. Events will include masterclasses, writing seminars, panel discussions, spoken word showcases and zine workshops.
In Belfast, the Centre will showcase its Young Writer Delegates and host an information session featuring Novel Fair winner Andrew Cunning. West Cork welcomes seminars, spoken word, and panels on diversity and queer literature. Wexford offers conversations with John Banville and Victoria Kennefick, while Waterford sees a Writers in the Regions masterclass from Danielle McLoughlin.
'It's about making space for writers everywhere, not just in the capital,' said CEO Mags McLoughlin. 'We want to build a national community of storytellers.'
Further details and programme links can be found at
irishwriterscentre.ie
.
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Bernardine Evaristo is the recipient of the Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a one-off literary honour marking the 30th anniversary year of the Women's Prize for Fiction.
This prestigious accolade, funded by Bukhman Philanthropies, celebrates Evaristo's body of work, her transformative impact on literature and her unwavering dedication to uplifting underrepresented voices across the cultural landscape.
As the recipient of the Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, Evaristo will receive £100,000 prize money and a special sculpture named 'Thoughtful' by Caroline Russell MRSS, both of which will be presented on June 12th at the Women's Prize Trust's summer party in London, alongside the winners of the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction and the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction.
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Sandycove is to publish Miriam O'Callaghan's memoir, Miriam: Life, Work, Everything, on October 30th.
O'Callaghan is one of Ireland's best-known broadcasters, covering every election, referendum, big controversy and important public event for RTÉ, and hosting an award-winning radio show, Sunday With Miriam on RTÉ Radio 1. She has presented RTÉ's Prime Time since 1996.
O'Callaghan said:
'It's 20 years since Sandycove first sent me a contract – let's just say, it's taken a while! I thank them for their patience, persistence and belief in my story. I have always lived my life in fast forward, so I never thought I would have the time to look back and reflect. I also wondered if anyone would be interested. Then one day not that long ago – with a prompt from Patricia Deevy – I decided I would write it, because if I didn't write it now, I might never do so.
'At first I thought it would just be about my work as a journalist, but then when I began writing I realised how impossible it was to separate my professional and personal lives. I don't know if that's because I'm a woman or a mother or both or none of those things, but I just knew that for my story to be authentic and truthful, I couldn't simply focus on the work side of my life.'
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The Irish Writers Centre launches the first in a new series of Writers Showcase events spotlighting newly published writers from across the island. The inaugural showcase, titled The Out of Towners, takes place on Wednesday, June 18th, at 6.30pm at the centre, 19 Parnell Square North, Dublin 1.
Curated to celebrate Ireland's rich poetic diversity, The Out of Towners features five poets whose compelling work captures a range of regional and personal perspectives:
Afric McGlinchey
is an award-winning poet based in West Cork. Her latest collection
À la belle étoile – the odyssey of Jeanne Baré
(Salmon Poetry) continues her internationally recognised body of work. Afric has received multiple Arts Council bursaries and her poetry has been translated into several languages.
Lauren O'Donovan
is a rising star from Cork whose recent accolades include the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award and the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her debut
Taxidermy Heart
and new chapbook
Superposition
were both published in 2025.
D'Or Seifer
is a Limerick-based poet whose debut collection
On Being Un/Able to Walk Through Walls
was published earlier this year by Revival Press. She is the founder of Lime Square Poets and co-hosts the First Wednesday Series in Limerick, as well as co-editing
Skylight 47
magazine.
Luke Morgan
, based in Galway, is the 2025 recipient of the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. His third collection,
Blood Atlas
(Arlen House), was supported by The Arts Council and follows his acclaimed work as both a poet and film-maker.
S.C. Flynn
recently relocated from Australia to Dublin and brings an international voice to the evening. His debut collection
The Colour of Extinction
(Renard Press, 2024) was
The Observer
's Poetry Book of the Month. His work has appeared in over 100 literary journals worldwide.
Each writer will read from their newly published collections and chapbooks, which will be available to purchase after the event.
The evening will be hosted by
Damien B. Donnelly
, creative projects co-ordinator at the centre. 'Ireland is bursting with poetic diversity and to gather these talented poets in one room reading from new collections is a privilege for the Centre. We are hopeful that the Writers Showcases will become a regular series, celebrating all forms of writing from all corners of the country,' said Donnelly.
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The Eavan Boland Award returns for 2025, inviting applications from early-career poets based in the UK and mid-career poets based in Ireland. The Eavan Boland Award 2025 will support two cross-residency opportunities at Trinity College Dublin School of English and the University of Manchester Centre for New Writing, supported by Poetry Ireland, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Manchester and the British Council.
This award honours Boland's dedication to fostering new voices and diverse perspectives in poetry and celebrates her legacy by supporting emerging and mid-career poets through residencies and mentorship. For full details and application, please visit
here
.
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Sixteen young writers from Ballinrobe Community School, Gaza and Cairo have published A Spinning Tyre, an anthology of poems and short stories born from cross-Border writing workshops led by Liam Horan through the University of Limerick's Creative Writers in the Community programme. Developed with the Hands Up Project, the collection explores themes such as war, identity and belonging. Featured are Ben Egan, Caoimhe Macken, Dominic Brennan, Donal Lenihan, Jessica McMurray, Nathan Loughrey, Stephen John Feerick (Ballinrobe); Alaa Kamal, Hala Aqel, Islam Kamal, Jaber Hammam Basal, Lama Ehab Sadi Kuhail, Leen Ehab Sadi Kuhail, Malak Basal, Marah Kamel Abu Shamla and Wadee Nasser Ahmed Shabat (Gaza and Cairo).
It is available for €10 at Martin Murphy's Newsagents, Ballinrobe.
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Little Island Books have signed multi-book deals for the first time in the company's history, agreeing three-book contracts with two Cork-based Irish authors: Kel Menton and Jen Wallace.
Menton, whose debut
A Fix of Light
was published by Little Island in February, has signed on for three more novels for young readers: a mix of YA and middle-grade titles with an emphasis on speculative fiction and magic realism.
Wallace, whose debut chapter-book
Dinosaur Pie
won the junior category at the 2025 Great Reads Awards, has plans to publish three more works of fiction with neurodiverse protagonists. Illustrator Alan O'Rourke has also signed on to illustrate two sequels to
Dinosaur Pie
, while Wallace's fourth publication will be a picture book about an autistic girl's relationship with her grandmother.
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The Week Junior Book Awards have unveiled their 2025 shortlists, celebrating the best in children's literature across 13 categories, including Irish authors Chris Haughton, Sheena Dempsey, Eilish Fisher and Dermot Flynn.
Author and singer Geri Halliwell Horner, CBeebies' George Webster, presenter and actor Rhys Stephenson, and lexicographer Susie Dent are among the judges who will select the winning titles. Winners will be announced at an award ceremony in central London on September 29th.
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An intense portrait of obsessive desire set in the rural Netherlands and a lushly illustrated elegy for the lost histories and identity of the Arab world have won the UK's longest-running literary awards, the James Tait Black Prizes.
Lucas Rijneveld's
My Heavenly Favourite
won the fiction prize and the biography prize was won by Lamia Ziadé for
My Great Arab Melancholy
. Each prize is shared with the writers' respective translators, Michele Hutchison and Emma Ramadan.
This is the first time that both prizes have been awarded to translated works and only the second time a writer and translator have been awarded a prize together in the history of the awards. The prizes were opened to translations in 2021, with authors and translators honoured equally.