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Paul O'Connell wins Irish sports book Paul O'Connell wins Irish sports book

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Paul O’Connell wins Irish sports book of the year 2016

Paul O’Connell wins Irish sports book of the year award 2016. Paul O’Connell and Alan English pictured holding their award for Best Sports Book of the Year at the Bord Gais Energy Book Awards 2016.

Rugby legend Paul O’Connell’s ‘The Battle’ won Irish sports book of the year at the Bord Gais Energy Book awards this week. 

The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards are a set of industry recognition awards set up by a coalition of Irish booksellers in 2007. The over-riding motivation behind the awards is to celebrate the extraordinary quality of Irish writing, to help bring the best books to a wider readership annually, and to promote an industry under severe competitive pressures.

Paul O’Connell was one of three Limerick authors nominated for the Bord Gais Energy Book Awards 2016. 


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The autobiography was co-written by former Limerick Leader editor Alan English and was published by Penguin Ireland. English joined as Paul wins Irish sports book of the year award 2016. 

Paul is said to have written the book over the course of seven years and was up against five other books in the category – Blood, Sweat & McAteer by Jason McAteer; Coolmore Stud, Ireland’s Greatest Sporting Success Story by Alan Conway; My Life in Rugby by Donal Lenihan; Out of Control – Cathal Mc Carron, and Win or Learn by John Kavanagh. 

The book was released in October and went straight to the top of the bestsellers list receiving excellent reviews followed by a well-deserved win at the Bord Gais Energy Book Awards 2016. 

An array of famous faces joined Paul O’Connell at the awards on Wednesday night including Graham Norton, Cecelia Ahern, Roddy Doyle and more.

The Bord Gais Energy Book Awards will be aired on RTE One Saturday November 19 at 11:15pm

To read more on Paul O’Connell, click here.

Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.