Authors win October award

This month’s Cork Person of the Month has gone to two people who are part of Cork’s great literary tradition. Award winning writers William Wall and Tadhg Coakley have been chosen as October Cork Persons' of the Month.

William Wall was born in Cork city but grew up in the East Cork village of Whitegate and to date has published six novels, four collections of poetry and three collections of short fiction. All his novels have been set in and around Cork city and county.

William said: “It’s an honour to be named as Cork Person of the Month. Cork is a city of many writers and great talkers. It has given me so much material to work with over the years, you could say it is city of the month for me every month.”

Tadhg Coakley from Mallow, who now lives in Ballinlough, began writing later in life. After taking early retirement from his job as a librarian in CIT he turned to writing. He enrolled in the MA in Creative Writing in UCC which gave him the confidence to write his first novel, ‘The First Sunday in September’ which was published in 2018 and was shortlisted for the Mercier Press fiction prize. Tadhg’s next novel ‘Whatever It Takes’, a crime novel set in Cork, was published in August. Tadhg said: “In my younger days I would never have thought that I’d be receiving this award in honour of my writing. But I am delighted that I chose to pursue my passion, and the fact that people enjoy what I do is truly heart-warming.”

Awards Organiser Manus O’Callaghan added “Bill Wall and Tadhg Coakley are two people that Cork people would just like to say ‘thank you for the work,’ so it’s nice that we can do that on their behalf.”

William Wall and Tadhg Coakley’s names will now go forward for possible selection as Cork Persons' of the Year.