Valentine Jones - Winner of the 2026 Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship

We are delighted to announce this year's scholar, Valentine Jones. We had 33 applicants and the judging panel of John Fitzgerald, Sadhbh Moriarty and Dean Browne had a difficult time as always choosing a winner.

Valentine is a writer and poet from Limerick. Places they have been published include Poetry Ireland Review, The Stony Thursday Book, The Wild Umbrella, Iris Breac, the From the Well anthology, and the upcoming 21st issue of Skylight 47. In 2025 Valentine performed at the Cork International Short Story Festival, and is set to perform at the 2026 Cork International Poetry Festival as part of the Prebooked Poetry Introductions. They are in their first year in UCC, studying English and Gaeilge. They have received the Edna O’Brien Young Writers Award and the Sr. Joan Bowles Youth Award. They are a Quercus Creative and Performing Arts Scholarship student at UCC.

The award includes both €1,500 and mentorship by this year's UCC Writer-in-residence, Dean Browne. 

We also had two highly commended applicants, Claire Dineen was once again recognised for her really excellent work. Sinéad de Búrca was also highly commended for her very strong entry. 

Hopefully we meet all new additions to our ever-growing community of poets and writers at the next tribute night.