The Irish PEN Dinner and Award 2018

Great to meet so many of my friends from Irish PEN at this year’s dinner and presentation of the Irish PEN Award at The Royal St George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire.

It is always a very special night to have so many writers gather to enjoy dinner and drinks and to honour a fellow writer in this beautiful old club.

This years’ very worthy winner of ‘The Irish PEN Award for Contribution to Literature’ is Anne Enright. As a  writer Anne  has achieved so much in terms of her work which includes , ‘The Green Road, The Portable Virgin’ and  her Man Booker award winning novel ’The Gathering’.  Anne has just finished up her term as the inaugural Laureate of Irish fiction.

The chairperson of Irish Pen Vanessa O’Loughlin presented Anne with the award.

June Considine of WORDS Ireland in her speech reminded all of us present of the imprisoned writers, an empty chair was positioned at the dinner to remember all of those, whose writing and words had led to their loss of freedom.