AN POST IRISH BOOk AWARDS
2025 An Post Book of the Year
Judging Panel
Judging Chair: Paul Howard
Paul Howard is an author, screenwriter and newspaper columnist. He is best-known as the creator of the South Dublin rugby jock Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, whose exploits he chronicled over the course of 24 novels. He is a five-time Irish Book Award winner, including the Best Non Fiction Book award for I Read the News Today, Oh Boy, his biography of Beatles muse and Guinness heir, Tara Browne, which is soon to become a musical. He is also a former Sports Journalist of the Year and Newspaper Columnist of the Year. As a screenwriter, he was part of the writing team behind the BAFTA award-winning Bad Sisters on Apple TV. Most recently, he has written for The Young Offenders and the Irish-Canadian co-production SisterS.
Madeleine Keane
Madeleine Keane is an editor, lecturer, and journalist. She was educated at UCD and Trinity. She joined the Sunday Independent in 1988 and has been its Literary Editor since 2002. She presented a book programme for RTÉ TV, First Edition, and has written a non-fiction careers guide for teenagers, What Will I Be? She has broadcast on books and publishing, regularly judges literary awards, and presents at arts festivals and events. She lectures on writing at UCD and the Irish Writers’ Centre. She is chair of Children’s Books Ireland.
Sinéad McCorry
Sinéad McCorry is passionate about books, has over 30 years’ experience in the trade starting off in Waterstones Richmond before moving on to manage the busy Academic Department in Cambridge. Upon her return to Ireland, she became Bookshop Manager in Belfast and was subsequently appointed as the Retail Manager Waterstones Ireland. She managed the expansion of the Waterstones brand to 12 shops and most recently, has overseen the ambitious refit of Ireland’s oldest Bookshop Hodges Figgis. Sinéad joined the Board of the Irish Book Awards in 2024.
Cyril McGrane
Cyril has worked with An Post for the last 26 years, holding a succession of senior roles in retail, operational and logistics management, strategic planning and international business development. A strong leader, Cyril has delivered large-scale transformational change through innovative commercial projects, automated systems and digitalisation.
A certified public accountant by profession, Cyril is An Post’s key liaison lead with IPC and the UPU and he is leading An Post’s Customs 2020 and Brexit programs. Prior to joining An Post, Cyril previously worked with CRH plc for 18 years.
Sara Keating
Sara Keating has been reviewing children’s books for The
Irish Times since 2012 and established the Baby Book Club at Dun Laoghaire
Libraries, where she was Writer in Residence at the DLR Lexicon in 2021. She
collects fairytale anthologies like Hansel hoards breadcrumbs, and her
favourite illustrators are Maurice Sendak and Tomi Ungerer.
Maria Dickenson
Maria Dickenson is General Manager of Dubray, which has eleven stores nationwide. She began her career in the book trade as a librarian, and prior to her current role she was Head of Book Purchasing for the Eason Group. She is a Board Member of the An Post Irish Book Awards and a Council Member of the Booksellers Association.
Madeleine Keane
Madeleine Keane is an editor, lecturer, and journalist. She was educated at UCD and Trinity. She joined the Sunday Independent in 1988 and has been its Literary Editor for the last 20 years.
She presented a book programme for RTE TV (‘First Edition’) and has written a non-fiction careers guide for teenagers (What Will I Be? Mercier Press 1995). She has broadcast on books and publishing, regularly judges literary awards, and presents at arts festivals and events. She lectures on writing at UCD and the Irish Writers’ Centre. She was recently appointed to the board of Children’s Books Ireland.
Rónán Hession
Rónán Hession is an Irish writer and musician based in Dublin. His debut novel Leonard and Hungry Paul was published by Bluemoose Books in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, the An Post Irish Book Awards, the British Book Awards, the Books Are My Bag Awards, the Dalkey Literary Prize, the McKitterick Prize, and was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. Leonard and Hungry Paul was selected by Dublin City Council as the 2021 One Dublin One Book. It was also chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 50 Great Irish Novels of the 21st Century.
Ronán’s second novel Panenka was published in May 2021. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards and the for Books Are My Bag Fiction prize. Rónán was shortlisted for 2021 Author of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards. Rónán’s story The Translator’s Funeral was longlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards for Short Story of the Year.
As Mumblin’ Deaf Ro, he has released three albums of storytelling songs. His third album Dictionary Crimes was shortlisted for the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year. Rónán also reviews fiction in translation for the Irish Times. He is currently working on his third novel, Ghost Mountain, which will be published in 2024.
Laura Hackett
Laura Hackett is the Deputy Literary Editor of the Sunday Times. She has been at the paper since September 2021, and before that contributed reviews to the Irish Times, Literary Review, the Times Literary Supplement and the BBC. Laura was born in Northern Ireland, and has particular interests in Irish fiction and memoirs.
Elaina Ryan
Elaina Ryan graduated from the MLitt in Publishing at University of Stirling in 2009. She was Managing Editor of Little Island Books, where she worked closely with Ireland’s inaugural Laureate na nÓg, Siobhán Parkinson, until 2013. Since then she has been CEO of Children’s Books Ireland, a charity and arts organisation whose vision is ‘every child a reader’. She is co-Artistic Director, with Niamh Sharkey, of Towers and Tales Children’s Books Festival in County Waterford. For the past two years she has featured in The Bookseller 150, an annual list of the 150 most influential people in UK and Irish publishing.
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