Tallaght writer Mark O'Rowe is eating up awards with the ease that the rest of us tackle hot dinners. Next week he will receive the very prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, which has rarely gone to a playwright. The £5,000 award is for a body of writing, not a specific work, but the judges were hugely impressed by his Howie the Rookie, a comic and surreal tale of two young Dubliners caught in a web of violence, told in a rush of choice Dublin argot. The play was presented at the Bush Theatre last February by the Royal Court. It went on to play at Tallaght's Civic Theatre, and will run for three weeks at the Assembly Rooms during the Edinburgh Festival.

He has also won, jointly with English playwright Rebecca Gilman, the £8,000 George Gilman Award for new writing. The award, set up to commemorate the life and talent of George Devine, who was artistic director of the Royal Court, is well recognised, and has proved a good diviner of emerging talent: it has also been won by Billy Roche, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson and Enda Walsh. O'Rowe is currently at work on a new play.