Booker prize-winning author receives honorary doctorate from the University of Limerick

A BOOKER Prize winning author and Limerick-born man, Paul Lynch is recognised worldwide for his skill as a writer.

Paul was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Limerick.

Born in Limerick, Paul won the hugely contested Booker Prize in 2023 for his novel ‘Prophet Song’. 

He was presented the Honorary Doctorate by Acting UL President Professor Shane Kilcommins, who spoke at the ceremony on Friday, April 11 in UL’s Plassey House: “Paul Lynch has made significant contributions to the academic community. He is a valued member of the Creative Writing teaching team at Maynooth University and has generously supported our Creative Writing program at University of Limerick since its inception 11 years ago.  

“By awarding Paul Lynch this honorary doctorate, we celebrate his remarkable contributions to literature and his unwavering support for our university. This honour not only acknowledges his outstanding achievements but also enhances the reputation of our Creative Writing programme,” Professor Kilcommins added. 

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After his schooling and university studies, Paul worked as a film critic and senior sub-editor with The Sunday Tribune newspaper in Dublin.  

In 2013, his first novel Red Sky in the Morning was published. It was selected as a book of the year by The Irish Times, The Toronto Star, the Irish Independent and the Sunday Business Post.  

His second novel The Black Snow was published in 2014, the same year the Creative Writing programme at UL was established, with Paul being an early supporter, often visiting the UL Creative Writing classroom, where he answered questions from students and read from his remarkable novel.  

In 2024, Paul Lynch was by peer nomination and election made a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy honouring artists whose work is deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to the creative arts.  

UL’s Professor of Creative Writing Joseph O’Connor said: “Paul Lynch is a young artist to have already achieved so much – and so much of solid worth - that we may speak, without the slightest risk of hyperbole, of a legacy that will last and will influence many younger and newer writers and become part of the consciousness of readers not yet born. We are honoured to confer on him this degree as a token of the profoundest respect in which he and his work are held.”