Abbie success at Parker awards event

S�an � Mor�naigh, Elaine Murphy, Irish President Mary McAleese and Abbie Spallen at the awards event

It was a celebration for Abbie at the Abbey on Monday, as a Newry woman was announced as the winner of the annual Stewart Parker Trust New Playwright Bursary.

Abbie Spallen received the honour at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin from the Irish President Mary McAleese.

Pumpgirl, the feature film adapted by Abbie for NI Screen/BBC Northern Ireland, had its first screening at the Belfast Film Festival earlier this month.

She has recently completed an attachment to the National Theatre in London. In 2009, her play Strandline will have its world premiere in Dublin with Fishamble Theatre Company.

This year marks the 21st anniversary of Belfast playwright Stewart Parker's death and Monday's event represented the 20th year of the awards set up in his memory.

Two BBC Northern Ireland awards are part of the arts initiative.

The BBC Northern Ireland Radio Drama Award was presented to Elaine Murphy and the BBC NI Irish Language Drama Award was presented to Seán Ó Morónaigh.

Elaine is an actress and writer from Dublin.

Her next play, In Dublin, set in a lap dancing club will be produced by Bedrock Theatre Company in 2009. Little Gem was her debut play and won the Fishamble Best New Play Award at the 2008 Dublin Fringe.

Seán Ó Morónaigh is Director of An Comhlachas Náisiúnta Drámaíochta (The National Drama Association) and received an award for his lifetime contribution to drama in the Irish language.

He was one of the founder members of An Comhlachas Náisiúnta Drámaíochta in 1976 and has published a number of works on traditional dramatic forms.

Stewart Parker was born in October 1941 into a Protestant working class family.

Before graduating from Queen's University he contracted bone cancer and had a leg amputated.

He later moved to the USA and taught in Hamilton College and Cornell University before returning to the UK.

He contributed a column on pop music to the Irish Times and wrote a number of plays for which he is now famous.

Two of his best-known plays were Spokesong, which depicted life through the eyes of the owner of a bicycle shop, and Catchpenny Twist, a television play about the Eurovision Song Contest with a tragic sting in the tail.

He died of cancer in 1988 aged 46.

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