The inaugural Douglas Gageby Irish Times Fellowship has been awarded to Mary Fitzgerald for her journalistic project "Under the Crescent - The Faces of Islam". Her reports will appear weekly in The Irish Times.
Based in Amman, Jordan, she has previously reported for international media organisations including the Washington Post, the Guardian, BBC, the Boston Globe, the Belfast Telegraph and The Irish Times. She has been the recipient of several awards, including the Laurence Stern Fellowship in the Washington Post.
From Fermoy in Co Cork, Ms Fitzgerald is a graduate of Queen's University Belfast and has also studied at the University of Ulster, Barry University, Miami, and the University of Jordan.
The Douglas Gageby Irish Times Fellowship was established by The Irish Times Trust last year to honour the memory of Douglas Gageby, editor of The Irish Times from 1963 to 1974 and 1977 to 1986. He died in June 2004.
The objective of the fellowship in 2005-6 was to give a print journalist, at an early stage of their career, the opportunity to spend between three to six months working on a project of transnational importance. Over 60 applications were received from Ireland, Britain, other European countries, Australia, the US, Central America, South America, Japan and Indonesia. From a shortlist of 15, four applicants were interviewed and Ms Fitzgerald was awarded the fellowship by unanimous vote of the judging panel.
The members of the panel were Dr Ruth Barrington (chairwoman), governor of The Irish Times Trust and chief executive of the Health Research Board; Geraldine Kennedy, Editor of The Irish Times; Patrick Gageby SC; and Patrick Smyth, Foreign Editor of The Irish Times. The administrator of the fellowship is Seán Hogan, the paper's former letters and obituaries editor. Details of the 2006-7 fellowship will be announced in September.
In her first report tomorrow, Mary Fitzgerald writes about the profoundly differing perspectives of two young Muslim women bound tragically together - the one, Nadia, a bride on her wedding day, the other Sajida, a suicide bomber bent on blowing up the wedding. A major series to appear in The Irish Times each Friday will explore the tensions in and complexities of Islam.