Winner of the Hubert Butler Essay Prize 2025

“Men must endure/ Their going hence, even as their coming hither” - King Lear. Have we no more active control over life, birth and death?

Stephanie O’Connor

"With courage, clarity and subtle discrimination, Stephanie O'Connor addresses fundamental questions that arise, as she writes, 'at the edges of human life', and presents an argument that affirms the dignity and respect that are due to all of us no less in the process of our 'going hence' than at the moment of our 'coming hither'." John Banville, Honorary Patron of the Hubert Butler Essay Prize.

Read Stephanie’s winning essay here.

The prize was judged by Catriona Crowe, Roy Foster (Chair), Nicholas Grene, and Barbara Schwepcke, and is designed to reflect Hubert Butler’s interest in the common ground between the European nation states that emerged after the First World War; his concern with the position of religious and ethnic minorities; his life and writings as an encapsulation of the mantra ‘Think globally, act locally’; the importance of the individual conscience; and his work with refugees.