The Irish Examiner recently published an article on scholarship winner, Ali Bracken Ziad and the scholarship.  The article can be read here  and gives a great account of Ali, his motivations as a writer, the scholarship and the upcoming tribute night. 

It also details Ali's new chapbook, written with the support of the scholarship fund;
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"In the opening poem in the book, titled Place And People Without, Ali writes: “I met a man that told me:/Life is treacherous/Whilst eating a spilling sandwich,/Coffee in hand, legs crossed”.

“That’s about two different occasions, speaking to a friend, and my brother,” he explains. “They were both sitting in the most comfortable, safe locations, having a coffee or eating a sandwich, and they were telling me how terrible life was. I was watching them and thinking to myself, ‘this just doesn’t look like a bad life’.”"

We are delighted to see Ali being recognised at a national level and also to see the positive impact the scholarship has had in supporting his work.

Come to the tribute night this Saturday to see Ali & others perform!

The annual Eoin Murray Tribute night will take place this August 25th, upstairs in The Long Valley bar - the site of weekly poetry night, O Bhéal.

This year the night is particularly special as it is the first scholarship showcase night.  Our 2018 winner, Ali Bracken Ziad, will preform work from his newest chapbook, which he wrote with the support of the scholarship fund.  Runner up Melanie Butler O' Reilly will also recite some of her original work.

We are very excited about the night.  We look forward to both remembering Eoin and supporting emerging poetic talent in Ali Bracken Ziad and Melanie Butler O' Reilly.  

The night will also include musical performances, a stall of poetry books & related art work and a raffle in aid of the scholarship.

It is our intention that these nights become inclusive events for all lovers of poetry and music, regardless of attendees having known Eoin personally.  In that spirit we welcome all to the night.

You can read more about the event on Facebook.

 We are delighted to announce that the winner of the inaugural Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship is 
Ali Bracken Ziad.  Ali is currently working on a debut chapbook.  He is a regular attendee of Ó Bhéal and is the current Munster Slam champion.  We greatly look forward to Ali's creative writing output over the coming months and years.

We had a wide range of impressive entries which were shortlisted into a list of five applicants. This list was forwarded to this year's judges - Bernard O'Donoghue, Thomas Morris, Leanne O'Sullivan and Ali Driscoll.

After some deliberation, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Ali Bracken Ziad (winner)
2. Melanie Butler O’Reilly (second place)
3. Katherine Currey (highly commended)
4. Enoch Lampe (highly commended)
5. Peter English (highly commended)

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 and we look forward to the body of work created due to it's patronage.

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.

We had a fundraiser for the scholarship on Tuesday, in The Poor Relation, Cork. 

It was another really wonderful and special night for all involved.  These occasions are a great chance for us to enjoy the creative community around Eoin, and to remember him together.  

We have a youtube playlist of performances from the night in chronological order.  We had performances from Elaine Malone, Eimear and Michael, Caoimhe Ní Chuilleagáin, Chinese Elevator Music, UCC Quarryman, Ó Bhéal, Annie Bloch, Katie O Neil & Nikki Burke, Sound Addiction and Cassidy Club - who by the way have a new single dropping in the next few weeks, wohoo!.

We also had a pretty impressive raffle (if we say so ourselves), with prizes donated from Radisson Blu Little Island, Vibes & Scribes, The Elm Tree, Kevin Hegarty Solicitors and Aherne's Centra Carrigtwohill.  We also sold some of Eoin's books and some beautiful card featuring his quotes designed by Martha Hegarty, all kindly printed by Carrig Print.

We raised over €1300 for the scholarship, that along with unexpected donations from The Otto Clinic and Maha Ireland means that this week alone we have raised more than enough for an extra year of the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship, allowing a deserving student the chance to spend a summer focusing on their art and producing poetry to enrich the cultural life of Cork and beyond.

We are as always so overwhelmed by people's generosity with their time, money and talent.  It is heartening to see something positive come out of what was and still is such a tragedy.

Our next fundraiser is on March 20th in The Poor Relation bar, Cork. 

Doors open at 7.30 and there will be a combination of music and spoken word performance.  You can feast your ears on deadly tunes such as this:

Besides Cassidy Club, we will have music from Chinese Elevator Music, Annie Bloch & band, Mark Leonard and Richard Murray - all former bandmates of Eoin, Elaine Malone and Caoimhe Ní Chuilleagáin. 

There will be spoken word performance from The English Literature Society, Ó Bheal and Eimear Hurley.

There is no entrance fee on the night.  We will collect donations and hold a raffle.  We will also have a merchandise table where you can buy some of Eoin's poetry books and related artwork from friends.

The deadline for submitting to the scholarship is March 23rd, so get submitting!!

Chinese Elevator Music reunited for Eoin's tribute night, 2017:

Annie Bloch & band

On the 15th of October, Eoin's brother Brian (together with honorary Murray and long time best friend, Jonathon Finn) ran the Palma Marathon to raise funds for the scholarship.

Brian started running four months ago (!) and decided that he would complete a marathon, before his 30th birthday, in memory of Eoin and in support of the scholarship.

Brian and Jonathon had a team of supporters in his parents; Jim and Tess, his sister; Maria and Jonathon's parents; John and Roseleen. 

In total, Brian managed to raise over €2000.  Words can't really express how humbled and grateful we all are for all the support and interest to date.  It's overwhelming, both the donations and the emails and letters we have been receiving in support of the scholarship.  We feel this is an opportunity to create something positive out of a terrible tragedy.  Nothing can really ease the loss of Eoin being here, gifting the world with his work.  However this scholarship is something he would have been proud of, and in the lack of Eoin's poetic voice in the world, we can support others. 

Thank you again for all of your support, well wishes and love.  

Colette Sheridan from The Evening Echo contacted us via the site to ask for information on an article about Eoin, the scholarship and the marathon that Brian is running to raise funds.  The article came out this October 10th and it was a heart-warming thing to see and read.  Colette chose beautiful photographs of Eoin and printed one of his poems - The Stream - with the article. 

The interview is mostly with Brian, and he has some great anecdotes and insights into Eoin's personality.  Some of my favourite quotes are....

"He was an amazing guy. I feel lucky more than anything to have had time with him. I’ll never again have the kind of conversations I had with him. He was amazingly artistic and very clever. He had been in local bands, playing drums and bass. He also played the piano and a bit of ukulele and he acted in plays."

“I’ll always remember one particular weekend. On Friday night, he was doing a gig in Cork. On Saturday night, he was playing in Belfast and on Sunday night, he was in Kerry doing a play as Gaeilge. He was about 18 at the time.” 

"(Eoin) would literally read and write all the time. It wasn’t him saying ‘I’m going to be a writer’. He was really doing it. He would tell people he was sorry he couldn’t meet them as he had books to read."

Click here to read the full article online.

​This September 24th, Teresa Murray (Eoin's mother) together with friends and family, completed the Cork Women's Mini Marathon in aid of the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship.  Together they raised in excess of €1500.  We greatly appreciate their generosity with their time and donations.  The support and encouragement for the scholarship has been overwhelming and we are so touched that so many people have pitched in to help

A very heartfelt thanks to all of you!

​On Saturday the 12th of August we held both the third tribute night for Eoin and the launch of the Eoin Murray memorial scholarship.

It was a wonderful night with an intimate and healing atmosphere.  The love for Eoin was palpable in the room, and the tributes to him in both song and spoken word were beautiful. 

We raised almost €1000 that night and we're very happy with this as a start to the fundraising activities. 

You can view the full playlist of tributes from that night by clicking here.