'Bosco' creator wins radio story prize

THE CREATOR of the children's television series Bosco was last night announced as the winner of a prestigious RTÉ Radio short story competition.

Joe O'Donnell beat off competition from 22 shortlisted writers to win the RTÉ Francis MacManus award and a prize of €3,000. His story, Valediction, will be broadcast on RTÉ Radio in the coming weeks.

Mr O'Donnell, a former head of young people's television with RTÉ, has previously written and directed episodes of Glenroe, The Riordans and The Morbegs.

However, he is best known for his work on Bosco, which featured a red-haired puppet that lived in a box. The programme ran on RTÉ in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has been revived in recent years through the release of DVDs.

Mr O'Donnell is a former winner of the award and has had over 15 short stories broadcast on RTÉ in the past.

The competition, now in its 22nd year, is named after broadcaster and novelist Francis MacManus.

This year's contest attracted over 700 entries from across Ireland and abroad.

The second prizewinner was Eileen Counihan from Shankill, Co Dublin, with Loser, and Roscommon writer Gerry Boland picked up the third prize for The Man with No Name.

Lorelei Harris of RTÉ Radio said: "The volume and high standard of this year's entries bear witness to the fact that prose writing of this sort is alive and well in every corner of the island of Ireland."