The winner of this year's Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards Bursary, worth £5,000, is 23-year-old Stephen Murphy from Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick. Stephen is currently in his first year of a three-year acting diploma course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.

He has already completed a degree in drama and theatre studies in TCD and has acted in many productions at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, as well as at the City Arts Centre, Andrews Lane Theatre, and as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival Fringe.

This is the second bursary to be given out as part of the Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards and this year's judges were delighted with both the level of response and the overall standard of entries. Details of the 1999 bursary will be announced in The Irish Times next spring.