Award winning authors William Wall and Tadhg Coakley have been named October Persons of the Month to mark their work over the years.

William Wall who was born in Cork city but grew up in the East Cork village of Whitegate started his career as a teacher of English at Presentation Brothers College and later published his first piece of work, a collection of poetry, in 1997 for which he won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award.

In 2000, his first novel, Alice Falling, was published. To date Wall has published six novels, all of which have been set in and around Cork city four collections of poetry and three collections of short fiction.

Speaking on his October Persons of the Month award, Mr Wall said it was “an honour”.

“It’s an honour to be named as Cork Person of the Month. Cork is a city of many writers and great talkers.

“It has given me so much material to work with over the years, you could say it is city of the month for me every month,” he added.

Tadhg Coakley from Mallow, who now lives in Ballinlough, began writing later in life after taking early retirement from his job as a librarian at CIT.

His first novel, The First Sunday in September, published in 2018, was shortlisted for the Mercier Press fiction prize and his second Whatever It Takes, a crime novel set in Cork, was published in August 2020 and named as the 2020 Cork One City One Book.

The One City One Book project transforms Cork into a citywide book club, with individuals, groups, and organisations reading one selected book, in turn building a sense of community, promoting reading and literacy.

Mr Coakley said that it was “truly heart-warming” to see people enjoy his writing.

“In my younger days I would never have thought that I’d be receiving this award in honour of my writing. But I am delighted that I chose to pursue my passion, and the fact that people enjoy what I do is truly heart-warming,” he said.

Awards Organiser Manus O’Callaghan said: “Bill Wall and Tadhg Coakley are two people that Cork people would just like to say, ‘Thank you for the work’, so it’s nice that we can do that on their behalf.”