“A remarkably self-assured writer, with impressive range and depth to her poetry and prose, resulting in deeply personal yet universal meditations on life and living. "Goodbye blue Monday" finds glimpses of strange beauty in everyday gestures and moments. "Spring" deploys rhyming couplets with a deft lightness that breathes life into well-worn forms and tropes. In general, the writing is alive with excitement and surprise, generated by careful and bold use of language and fired by an impressive, informed imagination. It is also beautifully introspective, with rich and evocative imagery underscored by dreamlike detachment.”

There was 26 applicants and we had two highly-commended writers who were recognised for their excellent submissions:

• Aoife Imray
• Claire Dineen

The annual tribute night is set to take place on the 4th of September this year. It is 10 years since Eoin's passing and we have a few ideas on how to mark this anniversary, which we will post here in due course.

We received 29 applications this year and after careful reviewing and discussion with the panel of judges (Ian Maleney, John Fitzgerald, Liz Quirke and Eamonn Mulholland), the final outcome was as follows:

1. Marij Bernard (winner)
2. Tess O Regan (highly commended)
3. Luke Condon (highly commended)

It is great to see two highly commended scholars, an indication of how high the standard was this year and the extent to which the judges deliberated. We hope this recognition encourages all of the scholars in pursuing their creative goals.

We are once again so happy to see Eoin's legacy and the scholarship move forward and we are excited to meet and listen to the word of Martje, Tess and Luke at the Tribute Night this coming summer.

We thank all those who entered this year, as well as the panel of judges and administration staff in UCC who facilitate this scholarship every year. We say a particular thanks to Danny Denton for the enthusiasm and efficiency with which he manages this every year. 

On the 25th of October we attended the annual School of English welcome event. As always it was a lovely evening in the very cosy and welcoming staff common room in UCC. It was another opportunity for us to meet Freyja (pictured here) and her mother. Freyja read some new work we hadn't heard which was a real treat. It was also great to see Danny Denton (also pictured above) and catch up over the past few months. Danny is a writer and lecturer in UCC. He has provided great support to the scholarship and is instrumental every year in making sure it continues to happen. 

​Thank you again to UCC for the invite. This years Scholarship application process will open soon and as always we look forward to the high calibre of submissions. 

After reviewing the many talented applications, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Freyja Hellebust (winner)
2. Otto Goodwin (highly commended)

It gives us great pleasure to see the Scholarship community widen further with the addition of Freyja and Otto, and we look forward to meeting them at the Tribute Night later in the summer.

As always, we would like to thank all students who took part. It is very heartening to see the scholarship go from strength to strength each year.

This year we were finally able to gather in person again to celebrate Eoin's tribute night. The event took place in the Spailpín Fánach on the first of September. As always, the room was full of love, creativity and friendship, just the way he would have wanted it to be. Thanks as always to Eoin's close friends in organising and performing on the night. It was really lovely as well to see poets from past years coming back with their family and friends to perform and support. One of our ambitions with the scholarship was to create a supportive community of writers in Cork, and we really saw that coming to fruition this year. It was also as always a lovely opportunity to catch up with each other and a remember Eoin together. 

You can see the full playlist here. 

We are delighted to announce the winner of the fifth Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship, Aoife Obsorne. As part of the scholarship, Aoife will receive €1500 to allow her to focus on developing her writing over the summer. We hope to have our annual tribute night in-person again this year, and look forward to Aoife's performance. Aoife will also receive mentorship from the UCC writer-in-residence. You can follow Aoife's progress over the summer from her instagram page, @little.lost.starfish

Aoife has published numerous articles with local and national newspapers. Her most recent venture into literary criticism saw her write for the Paper Lanterns Young Adult Literary Journal. In 2016, Aoife placed second in her category at the National Newspapers of Ireland Press Pass Awards. She was also shortlisted for the International IMBAS Short Story Competition in 2018 and was a highly commended entrant of the 2020 NYC Midnight Microfiction Competition. We greatly look forward to reading her future work.

After reviewing the many talented applications, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Aoife Osborne (winner)
2. Emily Linehan (highly commended)

We are delighted to welcome Aoife and Emily to the community of poets and writers that is growing around the scholarship. We hope to see them both, any many of our past scholars and runners-up, at the tribute night later in the year. We thank all students who took the time to enter the scholarship and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year. 

Our warmest congratulations to Maeve Jane Taggart, the winner of the fourth Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship. To date, Maeve's creative writing projects have been largely poetry based, with poems collected on the Instagram account @maevejmct. Creative non-fiction writing has lead to the piece 'Sugar-Pilled Love' being shortlisted for the Wow! Women in Writing 2019 Creative Non-Fiction competition and the piece 'A 'Brief' Update on Cork's Attitude to Sexual Assault' being shortlisted for the 'I'll Show You Mine' journals 2019 prize in non-fiction. Creative writing work has been published in two volumes of The Quarryman, Motley Magazine and The Cherry Revolution. Non-fiction and news have been published in The University Express, Shared Future News, Motley and SpunOut.ie. Maeve will be mentored by this years' UCC writer in residence; Eimear Ryan and we look forward to reading her new work.​

After reviewing the many talented applications, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Maeve Jane Taggart (winner)
2. Dara Hanley (highly commended)
3. Ianna Rosa Román (highly commended)

As always, we would like to thank all students who took the time to enter the scholarship and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year.  It is exciting to see interest and applications to the scholarship growing. It is also wonderful to be growing this catalogue of emerging writers.

 We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 3rd Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship is 
Alana Daly Mulligan.  Alana already has an impressive career, co-founding Europe’s first poetry festival organised by young people for young people (ages 13-19); The Lit Young Writers’ Festival (2017-present). She has written numerous short films to critical acclaim and her publications include; Autonomy (2018), Solstice Sounds Volume VI (2018), The Quarryman V (2019), University Express, Motley Magazine, and BND Magazine. Alana has also been included on a Spoken Word map of Ireland and the UK (2018). Alana has a strong reputation as a performance poet and has performed internationally at events like All Together Now, The First Fortnight Festival, Cúirt International Poetry Festival, Cork LGBT+ Pride Festival, The Belfast Poetry Festival, ME, USA, Three-Dot-Dash-Summit, NY, and has acted as support to Stephen James Smith, Neil Hilborn and Shane Koyczan.

This year the judges were particularly challenged to chose between the top three shortlisted poets. Our highly commended runners up are Joy Curtis and Lara Ní Chuirrín, both of whom have very impressive literary cvs so far and submitted beautiful writing samples.

We greatly look forward to seeing Alana, Joy and Lara perform at this year's tribute night in August. 

We would like to thank all students who took the time to enter the scholarship, and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year.  It is heartening for us to be able to award this scholarship in Eoin's memory.

We would also like to take this opportunity to extend again our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of you who donated time, money and effort to supporting this scholarship.  We know Eoin would be proud that this was happening in his name and we thank all of you who have contributed in so many ways in making this idea a reality.

Last Thursday, the 3rd of October, the School of English and Digital Humanities held its welcome event for the new academic year. This was an opportunity for the school to present their undergraduate awards and introduce their visiting writers: Visiting Professor of Creative Writing, John Banville; Writer-in-Residence, Danny Denton; and Frank O’Connor International Fellow in the Short Story, Sara Maitland. It was also the launch of Dr James O’Sullivan’s monograph; Towards a Digital Poetics (Palgrave, 2019).

Our scholarship winner, Rose Keating, was also honoured with a certificate for winning the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship and performed her work "Guide to Hauntings".

It was a lovely opportunity to meet again with Rose, Lee and their colleagues in the School of English. We are grateful for their continuing support and dialogue with us on the development of the scholarship.

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the second Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship is Rose Keating.  Rose has won multiple awards, such as the Sean Dunne Young Writers award and the Write Here, Write Now competition. She has been published in several journals, magazines and podcasts. Rose is also a spoken-word performer. ​

This year we had an even greater number of entries. These were shortlisted into a list of 19 applicants. This list was forwarded to the scholarship judge panel and this year's guest judge, Cónal Creedon, 

After some deliberation, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Rose Keating (winner)
2. Molly Twomey (highly commended)
3. Kerri McIntyre and Kel Menton (highly commended)

We would like to thank again all students who took the time to enter the scholarship and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year.  It is exciting to see interest and applications to the scholarship growing.

We look forward to reading and hearing the work Rose creates with the scholarship!