Siobhán Parkinson announced as Laureate na nÓg

12 May 2010

President Mary McAleese announced Siobhán Parkinson as Laureate na nÓg, Ireland’s first laureate for children’s literature, presenting her with the Laureate na nÓg medal at a special event at the Arts Council. Laureate na nÓg is a new initiative of the Arts Council with the support of the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Children’s Books Ireland and Poetry Ireland.

The honour has been established to engage young people with high quality children’s literature and to underline the importance of children’s literature in our cultural and imaginative life. Laureate na nÓg is also supported by Eason’s and by the Irish Times. Pat Moylan, Chairman of the Arts Council, said, ‘The Arts Council is proud to initiate Ireland’s first laureate for children’s literature. Laureate na nÓg seeks to broaden and enrich young people’s imaginative worlds, to encourage a love of reading and to inculcate the value of literature among children and young people. Literature plays a unique role in helping us to interrogate who we are as a society, it has the power to make us understand what it means to be human, and it offers us that most subversive of things – pleasure.’