Rooney Prize for Irish Literature

Mm-hmm.

I was reading, um, that obviously you've won a few prizes with this, so you've got a few debut fiction for Waterstones and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature last year, which was, uh, fantastic.

You've also won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, I had a lovely evening in the company of very literary people in Trinity College, Dublin last night.

It was for the Rooney Prize, which they gave to very promising writers under 40.

And it was the 50th anniversary.

Now, Trinity is a place I wanted to go to college, but I was too intimidated to put it on my CAO form because of the grandeur of the place.

And in a grand dining hall, I was sitting next to Clare woman, Derynne Grieffa, who is pure soundness and joy, put us all at ease.

You don't expect it to see sometimes from very deep and serious and meaningful writers, which Derynne is.

She won the Rooney Prize 10 years ago with a baby in her arms.

A one-year-old child, her youngest, can you believe it? Anne N.

This evening a special event is being held at Trinity College in Dublin to mark the 50th anniversary of the Rooney Prize for Literature.

More than 20 of the previous winners are expected to attend.

The Rooney Prize is awarded for an outstanding body of work by an emerging Irish writer under the age of 40.

Our arts and media correspondent Evelyn O'Rourke has been finding out more about the plans for this milestone and Evelyn we will come to that in just a

moment.

Now,

let's

talk about the Rooney Prize.

She's an Irish citizen.

She won the Rooney Prize 10 years after arriving in Ireland for her memoir, I Don't Want to Talk About Home.

And it's that.

It's the fact that it's carrying on and there's a new generation and a new blood of writing that is so exciting.

It's not something that we're just looking at the 18th century or the past.

We're looking at what's happening right now.

The Rooney Prize is being announced this week, by the way, in Trinity College.

Oh, is it? Yes.