Dubliner Jennifer Farrell was named overall winner of the 2005 Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Literary Awards in Dublin yesterday. Ms Farrell, who received €4,000 for the overall award, also won the first fiction category for her story Beached.
It was a particularly sweet victory for Ms Farrell, who left full-time education after primary school, returning to sit her Leaving Certificate many years later as a mature student. "I'll make this award work for me," she vowed yesterday.
The other two winners were Maria Wallace for emerging poetry, and Owen Dwyer for emerging fiction, who each won €1,500. Also presented yesterday was the fourth special hall of fame award - to Irish writer Colum McCann, who travelled from New York to accept it, and who was the Hennessy new writer of the year in 1990. Previous writers honoured with this award have been Dermot Bolger, Joseph O'Connor and Pat McCabe.
McCann told the audience that when he won in 1990, he was working in Texas and too broke to come home. Yesterday, he dedicated his award to his parents, Seán and Sally McCann, who were also present.
