THE NIGHT IRELAND’S LITERARY STARS CAME OUT TO SHINE
ACCEPTING the Listener’s Choice Book of the Year for he, his novel about Stan Laurel, John Connolly talked about “people who are in love with books” and last Tuesday night at the Irish Book Awards the Clayton Hotel was filled with them. Authors, agents, retailers, editors, librarians and publishers came together for what our elegant compere Keelin Shanley described as “some writers one and only Christmas party night out”. Later, much later, leaving the after-party knee deep in bibliophiles, I couldn’t help feeling they’d taken her very much at her word.
After Champagne, a poignant farewell from our wonderful headline sponsors Bord Gais Energy, and dinner, it was awards time. A strong London contingent included literary agents Ivan Mulcahy and Sallyanne Sweeney, both delighted that Darach O’Seaghdha whose career they have nurtured, won the Popular Non-fiction title for Mother-
focloir, his engaging romp round the Irish language. And O’Seaghdha pointed out: “I beat Dustin.”
Ryan Tubridy paid eloquent testament to ‘supernova’ David Walliams who was presented with the Bord Gais Energy International Recognition Award for his exceptional contribution to children’s writing. A happy Walliams was pleased with the plaudit and to be in Ireland, “home of great writers like Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Paul O’Connell”.
The increasing importance of children’s publishing was recognised, with their categories expanded to three. Sarah Webb, who has been an outstanding champion of this genre, picked up the laurel ( junior) for A Sailor Went to
Sea, Sea, Sea while Judi Curtin, who has written 25 books, was given the senior prize for Stand by Me. In teens, Tangleweed and Brine won: a dozen dark retellings of traditional fairytales, it was described by its author Deirdre Sullivan as “a book of my heart”.
At this newspaper, we were very proud that Fergal Keane won Onside’s Non-fiction award for his powerful and moving memoir of love and war — Wounds — while our sister publication, the Irish
Independent gave the coveted crime gong to Julie Parsons, back after a decade with The
Therapy House. Ballymaloe continued its domination with another member of the celebrated culinary clan Rory O’Connell (brother of Darina) getting the cobalt crystal for
Cook Well, Eat Well, named Eurospar’s Cookery Book of the Year.
Wonderful it was too in the week Patrick Kavanagh’s work was celebrated, that poetry got so much attention. The Listowel Writers’ Week award was won by Clodagh Beresford Dunne, and then Olivia O’Leary (currently presenting RTE’s new poetry show) delivered an eloquent encomium for Eavan Boland — this year’s recipient of the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award.
Finally it was time for the biggie, Eason Book Club’s Novel of the Year. This year’s shortlist featured six literary heavyweights — the Johns Banville, Boyne and Connolly, Roddy Doyle, Molly McCloskey and Bernard McLaverty, who won for his beautifully nuanced portrait of a long marriage — Midwinter Break. Delighted with the acclaim that this, his first novel for 16 years, has been getting, McLaverty quipped, “when it comes to humility, I’m a master”. Maestro, we salute you.
WHEN you “jump on a bus to Dun Laoghaire” — the 46a of course — it’ll take you down York Road, home to three of the winners in the Irish Book Awards. Sarah Webb (top right), who won for children with A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea, Marian Keyes (middle), for popular fiction with her novel The Break and me too (bottom). I won for crime with The Therapy House. You’d have to say York Road is a road full of dreams.
Of course Dun Laoghaire is no stranger to writers. There’s a plaque on the East Pier which remembers Samuel Beckett, who lived just off the 46a route, in leafy Foxrock in a beautiful house called Cooldrinagh on Kerrymount Avenue. I often stop at the plaque and pinch myself that I share the sea air with such a genius.
I have to pinch myself too as I toil up the York Road hill and pass Marian Keyes’s gate. I think of all the wonderful stories that have poured out through it. Life and love, happiness and unhappiness, sadness, regret and ultimate redemption.
Stories with a sense of humour, essentially Irish, spreading their wings and flying from York Road around the world. Sarah Webb’s gate, too, hides a prodigious talent. A writer who’s a watchword for creativity and focus. She writes for adults, young adults and children, and has inspired the generation of young writers to come. I hunch over my desk, looking out on my neighbours’ back gardens and plot, plan and scheme from page to page, until the bad guys are banged to rights and order is restored to my fictional world. Not that it’s always fictional. The Therapy House has real elements of Dun Laoghaire’s past when it was a Protestant town, with four Protestant churches and Protestant shops and businesses. Most is gone now. York Road Presbyterian Church is still in use, but the road’s Birds’ Nest orphanage, where footballer Paul McGrath spent his early childhood, called The Haven in my book, has been converted into apartments and offices. I sit in my study every day. I know that up the road Marian and Sarah are doing the same. We’re all dreaming, scheming, making it up and writing it down. Maybe it’s the vigour of the sea air. Maybe it’s Dun Laoghaire’s friendly tolerance. It accepts us for what we are. Or maybe it’s just because writing is what we do.