Winners of the Harding Parody Prize 2006 announced at the annual Public Libraries Conference in Cavan

Many thanks to all who entered this year’s competition. The standard was particularly high this year and the judges all commented on how difficult it was to choose the final winners. In fact, due to the high calibre of the entries our sponsor, George Harding, decided at the last minute to award 3 extra prizes for those on the shortlist who didn’t win the main prizes.

For the record, the judges this year were crime authors Mike Ripley, Val McDermid and Simon Brett for the Murder in the Library competition, and Ruth Dudley-Edwards for the What I Did on my Holidays competition – no member of the Public Libraries Committee was involved in the judging.

The winners and their winning entries are as follows:

Murder in the Library Competition:

Jamie O’Connell, Cork City Library – read Jamie O’Connell’s entry.

Kate O’Callaghan, Wexford County Library – read Kate O’Callaghan’s entry.

What I Did on My Holidays Competition:

Keith Martin, Westport Library, Co. Mayo – read Keith Martin’s entry.

Runner-up Prizes for the Murder in the Library Competition (in no particular order) – each receiving a signed, limited edition of Ken Bruen’s new novel Priest :

Kate Brazil, Bray Library, Co.Wicklow – read Sarah Fitzgerald, Caherconlish Library, Co. Limerick – read Maighread Medbh, Howth Library, Co.Dublin – read

Congratulations to all the winners, commiserations to those not lucky this year. We will hopefully be running the competition again next year so please keep an eye out for information in the autumn of 2007.