Writer and poet Medbh McGuckian is the 1998 winner of the Ireland Funds Literary Award. She was presented with a cheque for £10,000 yesterday by the actor Gregory Peck, an honorary life trustee of the organisation.
Born in Belfast, she was educated at the Dominican Convent and then Queen's University, where she was taught by Seamus Heaney.
She obtained a Masters in English at Queens and went on to teach for 10 years. She has had three volumes of poetry published by Oxford University Press and three by Gallery Press.
She has edited an anthology of poems by Northern Irish school children and an anthology of Irish women's poetry.
The award is funded annually by the Thomas O'Neill family of New York and Florida. Previous winners included Sebastian Barry, Seamus Heaney, John Banville, Brian Friel, John B. Keane, Austin Clarke and John McGahern.