Leading playwright Frank McGuinness was yesterday presented with the Hennessy Literary Awards Hall of Fame accolade at a ceremony in Dublin.
The Donegal-born writer achieved a major breakthrough in 1985 when his acclaimed play Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme opened in the Peacock and then the Abbey Theatre.
Accepting his award, McGuinness said: "This touches me very deeply." The National Theatre in London is staging his translation of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle on the 10th anniversary of its original production.
The Hennessy Awards Hall of Fame was launched four years ago to honour writers who were first published in the Sunday Tribune's New Irish Writing pages or won Hennessy awards.
Previous recipients include Joseph O'Connor and Colum McCann. A Dáil translator, Katherine Duffy, won the overall New Irish Writer Award for her emerging fiction piece, Must See.
Duffy has had stories published in the New Irish Writing page and also writes fiction in Irish. Originally from Dundalk, she lives in Churchtown, Dublin. Her poetry collection The Erratic Behaviour of Tides was published by Dedalus Press in 1999.
Other awards presented yesterday included Best First Fiction Writer to Ronan Doyle for his short story Story of Loss and Best Emerging Poetry to Majella Cullinane. Northern Ireland novelist Glenn Patterson and West Indies writer E A Markham were the judges for the awards, which were established in 1971.