Poet Leanne O’Sullivan is awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2010

Posted on: 13 October 2010

The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2010 was awarded to the poet Leanne O’Sullivan, in recognition of her achievement and outstanding promise as a poet.  The announcement was made by the Provost of Trinity College Dublin at a reception in the Residence of the US Ambassador to Ireland on Tuesday, October 12th last.

Leanne O’Sullivan was born in 1983 and comes from the Beara peninsula in West Cork.  She holds an MA in English from University College, Cork.  The young poet has published two collections of poetry with Bloodaxe Books: Waiting for My Clothes (2004) and Cailleach: The Hag of Beara (2009).

Provost, Dr John Hegarty, Leanne O’Sullivan, Patricia Rooney and Dr Daniel M. Rooney.

Previous winners of the  Rooney Prize include Bernard Farrell, Neil Jordan, Frank McGuinness, Deirdre Madden and Anne Enright. The selection committee this year comprised:

Dr Terence Brown, Chair of the selection committee, critic and author (Fellow Emeritus, TCD); Gerald Dawe poet, critic and editor (Director, The Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing, TCD);  Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, poet, critic and editor (Associate Professor School of English, TCD); Dr Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, novelist and dramatist; Carlo Gébler, novelist and dramatist; Dr Riana O’Dwyer critic and editor (Department of English, National University of Ireland at Galway)

Commenting on the significance of Leanne’s literary work, Dr Brown said that her poetry is marked by intensity of personal feeling expressed in a vivid imagery that sets powerful emotions in convincing mythic contexts.

The Rooney Prize is administered by  The Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing, School of English, Trinity College Dublin.

The Rooney Prize is awarded through the generosity of Dr Daniel M. Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the USA  and his wife, Patricia.  Dr Rooney is the US Ambassador to Ireland.  The Prize was established in 1975 and is awarded annually to a published Irish writer under forty whose work the selection committee considers shows outstanding promise.

Trinity in the News: