The northerners are out in force. They're here from Cavan, Omagh, Derry, Belfast, Downpatrick and beyond. The author and playwright Tom MacIntyre is a Cavan man and the recipient of this year's Ireland Funds Literary Award, which carries a prize of £20,000.
It is presented at the O'Reilly Hall in UCD by Derry-born poet and previous winner Seamus Heaney. "This gives me courage," says MacIntyre. "Story-tellers always need courage and with a story that is worth telling you are entering the shadow land and you may or may not come out alive. Tugann sibh misneach dom."If you want to catch one of his plays, The Gallant John-Joe, with Tom Hickey, is running at the Focus Theatre as a tribute to the recently deceased Deirdre O'Connell.
Benedict Kiely, the Omagh writer, is here to cheer on his fellow Ulster man. In his company are Tom and Maureen Kenny, of the Galway bookshop, along with Frances Daly. They mention that Ben Kiely's Collected Stories has just been published by Methuen.
Senator Maurice Hayes, from Downpatrick in Co Down, is a member of the Ireland Funds' advisory body. Among the many Ireland Funds visitors from around the world, especially the US, northerners are still in evidence - Janice McAdam of Dra∅ocht, Jackie Redpath, a community worker from Belfast, and Tony O'Reilly. Poet Nuala N∅ Dhomhnaill is with her daughter, Melissa Leflef, who has graduated as a botanist.
Catching up is Father Joe Dargan SJ, rector of Belvedere College, and Professor Edward Tempany, head of paediatrics in Penang Medical College, Malaysia. He and his wife, N≤ir∅n, love the new posting, which follows his retirement as professor of . A whole new life: mar a dhΘarfadh Tom MacIntyre, tugann sΘ sin misneach dom.