UCC/Sustainability Institute researcher wins Michael McLaverty Short Story Award

2 Apr 2026

Rachel Gough, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the UCC Sustainability Institute, has been awarded the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award for her piece A Certain Slant of Light.

The award ceremony, which took place in The Linen Hall Library Belfast on 24^th March was adjudicated by renowned writer Neil Hegarty (The Jewel; Inch Levels; The Story of Ireland) and editor Emma Warnock, No Alibis Press.

The purpose of the award is to foster and encourage the tradition of the short story. 

Rachel Gough is based in the CPPU group at the Sustainability Institute where she is working on the EPA-funded CLIMATUDE project. This project is focusing on developing an understanding of Irish people’s attitudes, beliefs and values related to climate change.  She also lectures in the Department of Film and Screen Media.

Her work includes short fiction broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in The Waxed Lemon, Outpost, Bealtaine, The National Flash Fiction Anthology, and Best Small Fictions, with further work forthcoming in The Medusa. Her poetry has been published in Quarryman and is forthcoming in One Good Day and Oscail.

In 2023 she received the Editor’s Choice Award from the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the same year. In 2025, she was awarded first place in the flash fiction category at the Write by the Sea Literary Festival. In 2026 she was awarded the Irish Writer’s Centre Notre Dame Kylemore Residency. She is currently working towards her first short story collection.

Linen Hall Librarian Samantha McCombe said the library was “delighted to honour Michael McLaverty’s commitment to fostering and encouraging creativity in the short story form.”

Michael McLaverty, born in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan in 1904. Widely regarded as one of Ireland’s finest short story writers, he spent 35 years teaching in Belfast, first at St John’s Primary School (1929–57) and later as headmaster of St Thomas Secondary School (1957–64). He died in 1992.

During his tenure at St Thomas, poet Seamus Heaney was among McLaverty’s staff. Heaney said of McLaverty that his: “voice was modestly pitched, he never sought the limelight, yet for all that, his place in our literature is secure.”

Previous award winners include Eamon McGuinness, Niall Burke and Tanaya Steed.