Wednesday night 14th. November 2018 was the culmination of the GSRMA Short Story Competition 2018. There was a prize awards ceremony at Skylon Hotel, where winners assembled to hear what the Adjudicators had to say about their respective stories. This year’s competition was again a huge success with the standard of entries improving all the time. This made the task of the adjudicators no small feat.
Present on the night were the finalists, Overall Winner Patricia Kelly GSRMA Dublin North Branch, with her entry Voices in the Chimney First Runner Up Bridie Brogan GSRMA Sligo/Leitrim Branch with her entry The Abandoned Rocking Chair Second Runner Up Mary Molloy GSRMA Naas Branch; and Joint third place runners up Eugene Noel Mulhern GSRMA Sligo/Leitrim Branch & Michel O’Connor GSRMA Sligo/Leitrim Branch, together with their guests.
John O’Brien of the Central Committee of GSRMA acted as Master of Ceremonies and thanked everyone for coming and introduced the various guests to the audience. Billy Saunderson Chairman of the GSRMA Editorial & Website Committee announced the winners in ascending order, and spoke of the individual stories and how they captured the imagination and made the choice of the Adjudicators a difficult one.
President Matt Givens likewise thanked the audience Barry O’Sullivan who was representing the Sponsors Garda Post, congratulated the winners and how delighted Garda Post were to be associated again this year with the Competition. He hoped that the competition would continue.
Editor of Siochain and General Secretary Paschal Feeney echoed what had been said and he hoped that those who were successful tonight would continue with their writings, as each of them has a creative skill. He thanked our Sponsors for the night, Barry and in particular Mairtin Breathneacht of G@rda Post and Universal Media for their continued support, not only for this Short Story Competition but for other projects over the years.
He reminded the authors that GSRMA now own each of these and all stories submitted to the competition, and he looked forward to publishing the winning stories in the upcoming editions of Siochain and into 2019. He also thanked Skylon Hotel, Drumcondra for their support on the night and right throughout the year.
