Dr Eibhear Walshe's novel shortlisted for prestigious literary prize

13 Apr 2015

The Diary of Mary Travers, written by our own Dr Eibhear Walshe, is one of five novels shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award 2015.

‘Shortlisted for the Kerry Fiction Prize 2015 , The Diary of Mary Travers is Eibhear Walshe’s first novel It is April 1895 and Oscar Wilde is on trial in London at the Old Bailey, following his libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, and faces ruin, public disgrace and imprisonment. In County Cork, a woman called Mary Travers is following the Wilde Trials in the newspapers, increasingly troubled by the growing public outcry. Mary Travers has her own secret, her hidden connection with Oscar Wilde and his parents, William and Jane, and dreads discovery and exposure. Unknown to those around her, in 1864, as a young woman, she had been the key figure in a notorious court case in Dublin, in which she sued Jane Wilde for libel, and the resulting scandal filled the newspapers for weeks. This controversial case is re-imagined for the first time through the eyes of the central figure, Mary Travers, and in her diary she reveals her own part in this scandal, her unhappy home life and her intimate connection with two of the most celebrated writers of her time, William and Jane Wilde.

For more information about the shortlisting, see http://writersweek.ie/