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  George A Birmingham Short Story CompetitionOrganised and run by Westport Town Council
Welcome to the George A Birmingham Short Story Competition web site.
The prize-winning in G. A. Birmingham competition have been awarded.
The winners are:
1st Billy O Callaghan,
Cork
2nd Susan Langan,
Dublin 6
3rd Alyn Fenn,
Co. Cork
The prize-giving will take place in Westport on the first weekend in September.
Westport Town Council wish to sincerely thank all entrants for their interest in the competition.
The stories were of the highest quality and we hope that those of you who may be disappointed will try again next year.
The George A Birmingham Short Story Competition honours the memory of Westport's famous writer Rev. James Hannay who under the pen name George A Birmingham wrote many crically claimed and popular books.
 George A Birmingham was the pen name of the Rev James Hannay. He was educated at Haileybury and Trinity College Dublin. He entered the church and became rector of Westport, County Mayo, in 1892. His first half-dozen novels produced little stir. In 1908 he published Spanish Gold, featuring Reverend Meldon, a curate of unusual boldness and eloquence. The reading public welcomed this new sort of humorous novel, and Hannay responded by writing a 'George Birmingham' novel almost every year.His General John Regan when produced as a play in Westport in 1913 led to a riot and the boycotting of Hannay when the townspeople discovered that he was the author. He left Westport and, after service as an army chaplain, settled at Mells rectory, Somerset, in 1924. Later he took charge of a small parish in London, where he died on 2 February 1950.
Besides his novels he published A Padre in France (1918), An Irishman Looks at his World (1919), A Wayfarer in Hungary (1925), and some religious works.
Source: A Dictionary of Irish Biography, Henry Boylan (ed.), Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1998.
JAMES OWEN HANNAY
(1865 - 1950) novelist
Born 16th Jul 1865, Belfast
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