October NUI Galway Fellow Shortlisted for Inaugural Michel Déon Prize

Dr Breandán Mac Suibhne, a Fellow with NUI Galway’s Moore Institute, has been shortlisted for the Royal Irish Academy’s inaugural Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction for his book The End of Outrage: Post-Famine Adjustment in Rural Ireland.  

Six books have been shortlisted from over 240 titles nominated through the Royal Irish Academy’s website, and the judging panel made their choice from the eligible titles. In shortlisting the titles they were looking for originality, quality of writing and contribution to knowledge and/or public debate.

The €10,000 prize for the winning author is sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs. The author will also have the opportunity to deliver ‘The Michel Déon Lecture’ in France in early 2019. 

Focused on a small community in the west of Ireland, The End of Outrage: Post-Famine Adjustment in Rural Irelandtells the story of schoolmaster who turns informer on a secret society – ostensibly in order to protect a farmer, James Gallagher, who had acquired land from his neighbours in the immediate aftermath of the Famine. It is at once a history and a memoir as the author’s forebears were among those who had lost land to Gallagher, and Dr Mac Suibhne probes how his own people came to terms with their loss. The End of Outrage was The Irish Times Irish Non-fiction Book of the Year in 2017, and in 2018 the American Conference for Irish Studies awarded it the Donnelly Prize for Books in History and Social Science.

Congratulating Dr Mac Suibhne on the nomination, Professor Daniel Carey, Director of the Moore Institute at NUI Galway, said: “The recognition conferred by this nomination is well-deserved. The End of Outrage is a remarkable achievement – a brilliantly written and researched book that gives a hugely compelling account. As a work of style and storytelling it is worthy of Michel Déon. The connection with NUI Galway is also apt since Michel Déon was a great supporter of the library and donated thousands of French books to the collection over many years.”

To reflect the work and interests of the French writer Michel Déon, who made Ireland his home from the 1970s until his death in 2016, the eligible categories for the prize were: autobiography, biography, cultural studies, history, literary studies, philosophy, travel. Authors of any nationality currently living on the island of Ireland who had published a non-fiction book in the period July 2016 to July 2018 were eligible. 

The winner will be announced at an event in early December 2018. For full details of the prize visit www.ria.ie/michel-deon-prize.

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