Ballina woman wins major prize at Listowel Writers' Week
Finola Cahill is pictured receiving her prize at Listowel Writers' Week.
Listowel Writers Week opened last week with a gala event, featuring the presentation of several prestigious literary awards, including the Single Poem Award, which was won by Ballina writer Finola Cahill for her poem .
President Micheal D. Higgins was among attendees and was presented with the John B. Keane Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to literature and poetry. President Higgins has been a supporter of the festival since its inception in the 1970s.
The Single Poem Award was re-introduced after a pause of some years and was adjudicated by T.S. Eliott nominee Victoria Kennefick and sponsored by the Royal Valentia Hotel. In her introduction, Dr Faye Boland said there had been a huge number of entries.
Finola, from Ballina, was the winner of the Waterford Poetry Prize in 2023, and in the past two years she was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the Máirtín Crawford Short Story Award, the Fish Poetry Prize, the Bridport Poetry Prize, and others. Finola was one of 37 writers selected to participate in the 2023 Irish Writers Centre national mentoring programme and her place in the programme was generously funded by the Mayo Arts Office. She is currently working towards publishing her first collection, for which she has received an Agility Award from the Arts Council.
