FINTAN O’TOOLE

Fintan O'Toole is an assistant editor of The Irish Times. Born in Dublin in 1958, he has been drama critic of In Dublin magazine, The Sunday Tribune, the New York Daily News, and The Irish Times and Literary Adviser to the Abbey Theatre. He edited Magill magazine and since 1988, has been a columnist with the Irish Times. His work has appeared in many international newspapers and magazines, including The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, Granta, The Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Awards include the AT Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism (1993), the Justice Award of the Incorporated Law Society (1994) and the Millennium Social Inclusion Award (2000). He has also broadcast extensively in Ireland the UK, including a period as presenter of BBC's The Late Show. Books include The Irish Times Book of the 1916 Rising (2006); White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America (2005), After the Ball (2003); Shakespeare is Hard but so is Life (2002); The Irish Times Book of the Century (1999); A Traitor's Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1997); The Lie of the Land: Selected Essays (1997); The Ex-Isle of Erin (1996); Black Hole, Green Card (1994); Meanwhile Back at the Ranch (1995); A Mass for Jesse James (1990) and The Politics of Magic (1987). 

CAROLINE WALSH

Caroline Walsh was born in 1952 and reared in Dublin and Co. Meath. She has been a journalist with the Irish Times since the mid-1970s where she was   Features Editor and Regional News Editor before becoming Literary Editor in 1999. She is the author of THE HOMES OF IRISH WRITERS and has edited three collections of short stories: MODERN IRISH SHORT STORIES FROM THE IRISH TIMES, VIRGINS AND HYACINTHS and ARROWS IN FLIGHT: SHORT STORIES FROM A NEW IRELAND.

LOUIS McREDMOND

Louis McRedmond grew up in the house on Upper Cork Street, Mitchelstown, where William Trevor was born.  He went to school at Mitchelstown C.B.S. and Clongowes Wood College, studied history at UCD and practised as a barrister before becoming a journalist.  He reported the Second Vatican Council from Rome, served as Editor of the Irish Independent, was first Director of the Professional Journalism Course at the College of Commerce, Rathmines, joined RTE as Head of Information and after his retirement was a visiting lecturer at the former International Academy of Broadcasting in Montreux, Switzerland.  He has written widely at home and abroad on political, social and Church affairs.  In the 1970s he compiled and presented news-feature items on RTE radio and for thirty years was Dublin Correspondent of The Tablet (London).  He is married to Maeve. They have four children and 13 grandchildren.    

Winner of Short Story Competition 2007

Alyn Fenn was born in England, brought up in Ireland, then lived in America for many years before returning to Ireland in 1994.  She is married with three sons, aged 22, 13 and 10. She has a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and has been painting for over twenty years. Only recently has she taken up writing poetry and short stories and has also begun work on her first novel.  Writing does run in her family – her father was a novelist and a playwright and her uncle was Alun Lewis, the Welsh World War 11 poet and short story writer.  Alyn is delighted and honoured having been chosen as the winner of the William Trevor International Short Story Competition 2007. She will read from her winning short story at the presentation ceremony.

Dr. GERALD KEAN  B.C.L.

Gerald Kean is fifty years of age and is separated with one daughter, named Kirsten. He was educated at De La Salle, Wicklow followed by a Bachelor of Civil Law Degree from U.C.D. He recently received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the American University in Florida.
Dr. Kean is a nephew of the late Chief Justice Mr. Liam Hamilton.
Dr. Kean commenced the practice of Keans Solicitors fifteen years ago and it is now one of the best known firms of Solicitors in Ireland having built up a reputation in the area of entertainment and sporting law.
He regularly speaks at events, concentrating on light-hearted stories involving the legal profession. Having entertained Royalty, we feel confident that he will entertain us royally on the opening night.

PROFESSOR MAURICE HARMON.

Maurice Harmon is Emeritus Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College Dublin.  A respected and internationally known scholar and critic with an extensive bibliography of published work, he has held a number of professorships in universities in America and Europe.  In 1990 he took early retirement from university teaching in order to devote himself to writing.  His books include Seán O’Faoláin. A Life (1994) and The Dolmen Press. A Celebration (2001).  He has edited No Author Better Served. The Correspondence between Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider (1998) and has translated the medieval Irish compendium of stories and poems The Colloquy of the Old Men (2001).

His most recent publications are Selected Essays (2006) and Thomas Kinsella. Designing for the Exact Needs (2008).  Dr. Harmon is also a poet. His collections include The Last Regatta (2000), The Doll with Two Backs and other poems (2004), and, forthcoming in June, The Mischievous Boy and other poems (2008).  The title poem has been set to music by Derek Ball and is the subject of a stained glass window by Phyllis Burke.

NUALA NI CHONCHUIR

Nuala Ní Chonchúir's second short fiction collection, To the World of Men, Welcome, was published by Arlen House in 2005; a bilingual poetry collection Tatto:Tatú was published by the same publisher last year and is shortlisted for the 2008 Strong Award. She is fiction editor for Southword magazine for 2008; she will also judge this year's Seán Ó’’Faoláin Short Story Prize. In September 2007, after a long few months of reading, Nuala was on the jury for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize along with Rick Moody and Segun Afolabi. They chose Miranda July's book as the eventual winner.
Nuala has won many short fiction prizes including the Cúirt New Writing Prize, RTÉ's Francis McManus Award, the inaugural Jonathan Swift Award and the Cecil Day Lewis Award.

MARTIN MANSERGH

Born in England, 1946. Married with five children. Son of Tipperary-born Irish historian Nicholas Mansergh and mother Diana. Educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and Christ Church, Oxford (PPE) M.A., D Phil. (18th c. Pre-Revolutionary French history). Co-owner with brother of a farm with beef and suckler herd enterprise. Studied politics, philosophy and economics in Oxford, and obtained Doctorate in French history. Entered Department of Foreign Affairs by open civil service competition in 1974. Promoted First Secretary 1977. Worked on European issues, and served 2 ½ years in Germany. Former Head of Research with Fianna Fáil and Special Adviser to the Taoiseach.

THE SPIRITUAL INSTITUTE

Sr. Patricia McGowan, Sr. Cecilia McGowan, and Brother Thomas Crutcher live at Holy Hill Hermitage in Skreen, Co. Sligo.  They belong to a small community who live as apostolic hermits according to the Carmelite tradition.  They welcome people who come to make solitary retreats at Holy Hill, and conduct occasional retreats and days of reflection.  They believe that everyone has the potential to be contemplative, even people deeply involved in work and family, and their goal is to help people discover their own inner depths.