A “subtle, sensitive and quietly powerful” story of domestic tension, Witness by Lynda McCarthy has been announced as the winning story in this year’s RTÉ Short Story Competition 2025 in honour of Francis MacManus.
The announcement was made live on RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena as part of an RTÉ Short Story Competition Special hosted by Rick O’Shea in the Pavillion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire.
As winner Lynda McCarthy received a cheque for €5,000. Lynda, a journalist originally from Cork, now living in County Waterford with her husband and children, first drafted this story last year while taking part in an online evening creative writing course with Waterford Libraries.
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Listen to Witness read by actress Eileen Walsh
This is her first time sending a work of fiction out for publication. Of the story, she said, “I wanted to explore this character who feels barely visible in her own home – what would it take for her to change her circumstances? What would it mean for her to have someone witness how she is treated?”
Short Story Competition prizewinners (L-R) Angela Finn,
Lynda McCarthy and Ian Feigery
Second Prize went to A Spectrum of Sorrow by Angela Finn, a final year PhD student at the School of English, DCU, who was presented with a cheque for €4,000, while Third Prize went to Auntie and Anto and Ivy and Ava by Ian Feighery, a primary school teacher from Tallaght, County Dublin, who was presented with a cheque for €3,000. The seven runners-up received €300 each.
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Listen to the RTÉ Short Story Competition final live, via RTÉ Arena
The winning short stories were selected by this year’s judges, writers Neil Hegarty, Tristan Rosenstock and Jan Carson from the shortlist of 10 short stories, shortlisted from 2,200 entries submitted.
Singer-songwriter David Kitt was the special musical guest on the night
Awarding the prize, Neil Hegarty said: “In the subtle and sensitive Witness, a middle-aged woman takes stock of her life – the impetus to do so being the arrival of new eyes and new energy in the form of a young French exchange student. As she assesses her stale relationships with her husband and her sons, we see – or do we? – the tentative beginnings of a new life, of a new courage, of a new way of living.”
Lynda McCarthy with RTÉ Arena host Rick O’Shea
Read and listen to all the RTÉ Short Story Competition stories here