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  “Poetry makes nothing happen” (W.H.Auden). What impact can high culture make in the real world?

The quotation in the essay title is taken from Auden’s elegy for Yeats, written in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War.  In times of global conflict, there can be an acute awareness of the impotence of art.  What impact, if any, can high culture have in a world threatened by disaster?

The 2026 prize will be judged Catriona Crowe, Roy Foster (Chair), Nicholas Grene, and Barbara Schwepcke and awarded at this year's Kilkenny Arts Festival, the prize's chief supporter.

How to Enter

The Hubert Butler Essay Prize is intended to encourage the art of essay-writing with a European dimension and to expand interest in Butler's work.  This year's prize of €2,500 is sponsored by Haus Publishing.

Deadline: 3 July 2026

Criteria for entry:

The author must be over 18 and be a UK or European Union citizen.

Conditions of entry

Essays submitted should be in English and of no more than 3,000 words in length (inclusive of quotations).

Entries should be double-spaced and saved as either a .pdf or .rtf file.

The author's name should not be on the essay, as these are judged blind, so should be on the title/cover page only.

The judges' decision is final. The judges reserve the right not to award the prize, should no entry reach a sufficiently high standard.

Please include the following details in your email:

• Name
• Postal address
• Telephone number
• Where you heard about the prize

Send to contact (at) heartlondon dot org