Writers Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride have won the 29th Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize, worth £7,500, for their book For and Against a United Ireland, published by the Royal Irish Academy.

The prize was founded by Jane Ewart-Biggs in memory of her husband Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British Ambassador to Ireland who was killed by the IRA in 1976.

It aims to promote peace and reconciliation in Ireland, encourage greater understanding between the peoples of Britain and Ireland, and support closer co-operation between European partners.

A Special Prize for a body of work reflecting these ideals was also awarded to the poet Tom Paulin.

Accepting the award, Sam McBride said: 

“This award means a great deal not only because it comes from such a distinguished panel of judges but because the ethos of this prize mirrors our motivation for this book. We were seeking not to change people’s minds, but to open them. Respecting our neighbours in this divided island means accepting that they are not necessarily stupid people who rely on limp arguments. In today’s hyper-polarised world, this is increasingly countercultural.

“I am exceptionally humbled at this honour. The list of past winners represents a who’s who of my journalistic and literary heroes who wrote about Ireland – David McKittrick, Dervla Murphy, ATQ Stewart, Fergal Keane, Michael Longley, and so many others. I feel very small in such sagacious company.”

Fintan O’Toole added:

“I vividly remember the horror of the murder of Christopher Ewart-Biggs fifty years ago and the pall of despair it left over us. The Ewart-Biggs Prize has always seemed to me a particularly graceful refusal of despair. It insists on the possibilities of both rational engagement with, and imaginative transcendence of, our shared dilemmas.

“I am both moved and honoured to be listed among the brilliant people who have won it in the past and among the shortlisted writers who would have been equally worthy winners this year. Sam and I have hoped in a small way to reject the relentless polarisation of contemporary politics and to show that even on highly emotive topics it is possible to have respectful discussions that acknowledge that those with whom one disagrees might have things to say that are worth listening to.”

Speaking for the Judges, Professor Roy Foster said:

“We shortlisted an impressive range of works which contribute in their different ways to increasing understanding; Trevor Birney’s investigation into the murky background of the Loughinisland murders of 1994; Edward Burke’s history of politics in Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal after Partition; Cormac Moore’s analysis of the Boundary Commission; Eoin MacNamee’s novel about criminal life  on the Border; and Clair Wills’s family memoir about hidden histories. But overall we felt  that Fintan O’Toole’s and Sam McBride’s book crucially achieved what  the Prize tries to reward; it takes an open-eyed and analytical view of a subject too often taken for granted, clarifying the issues involved on both sides, and making the reader re-examine expectations and opinions too often adopted unthinkingly.” 

Presenting the Special Prize to Tom Paulin, Kate Ewart-Biggs drew attention to the breadth, originality and eloquence of his output in poetry, drama, criticism, and his unwavering commitment to the causes of justice, freedom and knowledge, in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

The 2026 prize was presented by literary critic Edna Longley at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast.

The Judges are available for interview.  Please contact: Claire McAuley: clairemcauley@hotmail.com.

The six shortlisted entries for the 29th prize were:

• Trevor Birney, Shooting Crows: mass murder, state collusion and press freedom (Merrion Press)
• Edward Burke, Ulster’s Lost Counties: loyalism and paramilitarism since 1920 (Cambridge University Press)
• Eoin MacNamee, The Bureau (Riverrun)
• Cormac Moore, The Root of all Evil: the Irish Boundary Commission (Irish Academic Press)
• Sam McBride and Fintan O’Toole, For and Against a United Ireland (Royal Irish Academy)
• Clair Wills, Missing Persons, Or  My Grandmother’s Secrets (Allen Lane)