Galwayman Brian Ó Broin has been awarded first prize in the national literary competition An t-Oireachtas for his novel An Eachtra ar Oileán na Rún.
Dr. Ó Broin, who lives in New Jersey with his wife Jo Schuster and daughters Ána and Fiona, is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Medieval Literature at William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ. The prize was awarded in Dublin at the weekend,
An Eachtra ar Oileán na Rún (The Island of Secrets ) is aimed at teenage readers, and is set in a mysterious house on the north side of Dublin and at an archaeological dig on an island monastery in Lough Derg. The protagonists are New York-based teenagers on holiday in Ireland.
An t-Oireachtas has been held annually since 1897. Professor Ó Broin previously won an Oireachtas prize in 2002 for his full-length play Na hEorpaigh set during a civil war in Ireland. The play was produced the following year at An Taibhdhearc.
