Leitrim author Liz Laird takes the reader to Belfast in January 1979, and through the triumphs and challenges she encountered as she undertook her nurse training in the Royal Victoria Hospital. This book will have you laughing and weeping, as she navigates her journey from teenager to womanhood, with the backdrop of bombing, gunfire, hunger strikes and riots.

Entries must be the author’s own unpublished work. This includes print, online publication, or broadcast. Simultaneous submissions are accepted; however, entrants should notify organisers immediately if work is accepted elsewhere. The theme for this year’s competition is “New World.” Entrants must be over 18 years of age and either resident in Ireland or from the island of Ireland. Entry is free.

Bizarrely, for a society that has supposedly progressed out of the dark days of the Troubles and into a ‘new dispensation’, the Browns have now been kept waiting for an inquiry even longer than the Bloody Sunday families were.

It’s imperative that Derry and Coleraine - led by their Councils and Chambers of Commerce - quickly find shared leadership, and rise up with a common voice. They must convince the politicians at Stormont and Westminster with detailed arguments and analyses that this is wrong and will have devastating long term consequences for an important sub region on this island, before its too late.