Writer Ciarán Collins Awarded Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2013

Posted on: 03 October 2013

The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for 2013 was awarded to Ciarán Collins in recognition of his achievement and outstanding promise as a writer. The announcement was made by the Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Dr Patrick Prendergast at a reception in the Provost’s House this week.

Previous winners of the Rooney Prize include Bernard Farrell, Neil Jordan, Frank McGuinness, Deirdre Madden and Anne Enright.

The Rooney Prize is awarded annually to a young Irish writer who shows exceptional promise. It has existed since 1976 through the generosity of Dr Daniel Rooney, President Emeritus of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the former Ambassador to Ireland of the United States of America, and of his wife Mrs Patricia Rooney. The Rooney Prize is administered in the Oscar Wilde Centre, School of English at Trinity and its committee is chaired by Dr Terence Brown.

“Ciarán Collins is a novelist of striking inventiveness, one possessed of an acute ear for the language and syntax of everyday speech,” said Dr Terence Brown.

Ciarán Collins was born in Cork in 1977. He grew up in the village of Innishannon, Co. Cork. He is a graduate in English and Irish of University College Cork, where he also received an MA, specialising in modern drama, in 2001.

Since 2003 he has been a secondary school teacher of English and Irish, first in Dublin and subsequently in Bandon. He lives in Kinsale with his wife and has one daughter.

His first novel The Gamal  (Bloomsbury,2013),  to be published in Germany and in France, has been widely acclaimed. He is currently at work on a second novel, a play and a screenplay. He also writes short stories.