The Irish Times Travel Writer 2016: The top 10 entries

More than 650 people entered this year’s Irish Times Travel Writer competition, and our judging panel has spent the past number of weeks reading those entries, which gave a fascinating insight into adventures, mishaps and life-changing holidays and journeys in Ireland and around the globe.

Today we publish the 10 travel articles that have made it on to the shortlist. Congratulations to everyone who has made it this far.

One of these articles below will win our prize, which includes a trip abroad with Travel Department to cover a travel story for The Irish Times and subsequent publication in The Irish Times Magazine.

The shortlist is (click on each name to read the story):

[ Neil Blackbyrne on a Mongolian adventure ]

[ Lisa Mullee’s journey across La Guajira Peninsula, Colombia ]

[ Blathnaid De Roiste’s emotional trip to Iran ]

[ Annie Lowney on a bizarre trip to Beaver Island ]

[ Shannon Kelly’s memorable Romanian train journey ]

[ John Poole’s use of literature to spice up his travels ]

[ Conall Scollard’s adventures in La Paz ]

[ Tara Povey’s exhilarating night in Rio ]

[ Shane Kenneally on a realisation in Auschwitz ]

[ Louise Nealon on family trips to Inis Oírr ]

The winner will be announced this Saturday, October 29th, on irishtimes.com/travelwriter and also in The Irish Times Magazine

This year’s judging panel included Irish Times editors and journalists Orna Mulcahy, Brian Kilmartin, Leonie Corcoran, Joan Scales, Rosita Boland and Rachel Collins, and Travel Department marketing director Fergal O’Brien.

The judging process: All articles were judged blind, meaning there was no identification of the author on the article read by the judging panel. Each was judged on its story merits alone, with writing style, language, pace and storytelling technique marking one story out from another.