October Persons of the Month to mark their work over the years.

Cork Authors William Wall And Tadhg Coakley Honoured.

Award-winning writers William Wall and Tadhg Coakley are very much part of Cork’s great literary tradition and both have now 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. He graduated from University College Cork (UCC) with a degree in Philosophy and English and holds a PhD in creative writing, also from UCC. He started his career as a teacher of English at Presentation Brothers College, Cork. But the art of writing was always his first passion. He published his first piece of work, a collection of poetry, in 1997 and won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. In 2000, his first novel, ‘Alice Falling’, was published.

Pics by Harry Moore and Darragh Kane.

To date Wall has published six novels, four collections of poetry and three collections of short fiction. See his full list of work as novelist, poet and short story writer on www.williamwall.net.

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. His MA 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 2020 and named as the 2020 Cork One City, One Book. His most recent work is a biography of Cork dual-star Denis Coughlan. Get more information on Tadhg at tadhgcoakley.com.

Speaking on their awards win William Wall 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 commented, “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.