Mrs Patricia Rooney, Co-Founder of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature sadly passes away

It is with great sadness that we mark the death of Mrs Patricia Rooney. Mrs Patricia Rooney was the inspiration behind the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Along with her late husband Dan she fostered and supported one of the oldest literary awards in Ireland, unique in its time as a private donation. From its earliest years in the 1970s, Patricia took a serious and enlightened interest in the awardees and from 2007 when, at her and Dan’s initiative, the Rooney Prize was located in the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre, they attended the Provost’s ceremony to announce the annual winner. When the prize was celebrated in 2016 during its 40th year Provost Patrick Prendergast remarked: ‘When we speak about philanthropy and the great good it can do, we think of course of the great philanthropists, and particularly today of Dan and Patricia Rooney and the palpable good they have done.’ For this remarkable and enduring legacy, which has benefited and continues to benefit younger writers, the country is in Patricia and Dan Rooney’s debt. May she rest in peace.