Award Winner:

Winner of the Gerald Griffin Competition for First Original Adult Fiction 2025, presented by the Limerick Writers’ Centre.

Liam Horan’s debut novel On The Way Out follows Louise, fighting to save her struggling shop, and Matt, a widower clinging to the past, as a community project ignites unexpected controversy in their small Irish town of Rathfin. When old loyalties and new ambitions collide, both must decide what’s worth holding on to, and what to let go, in this heartfelt story of change, courage and second chances.

Praise for On The Way Out

Joseph O’Connor, author of My Father’s House and The Ghosts of Rome:

“I’m immensely fond of Liam Horan’s skilful, vivid, nuanced writing, which moves from insight to humour to emotional truthfulness, often in the one crafted paragraph. He’s a storyteller of great gifts, and they are all to be admired in this deeply impressive debut novel.”

Kerry Beth Neville, judge of the Gerald Griffin Award and author of Momma May be Mad:

“On the Way Out navigates the lives of ordinary people with tenderness, wit and acuity. This debut novel captures the complicated and often sticky web of small-town life: overlapping conversations in community halls, wary bonds formed in half-heated meeting rooms, gossip that can be both kind and cruel. The town itself is a character—a bit ragged but full of possibility... The dialogue is sharp but not heartless, funny but also reveals the ache of loneliness and grief. On the Way Out offers heartbreak and heart mending, showing us that we are, indeed, bound together in community.”

Ciaran O’Driscoll, judge of the Gerald Griffin Award and author of The Golden Ass:

“A deft coming together of the strands one expects in a novel: an engaging story, interesting characters, an ability to bounce the reader with its steady movement to a conclusion... There are also the more subtle devices of the art of fiction, such as the writing style itself and the use of sub-themes such as pilgrimage and the Kenny Rodgers motifs of gambling and the need to fight for one’s rights... We get a glimpse of self-interested power-play which threatens to wipe out a segment of the charm and livelihood of a small town, a street and its citizens, but the solution recommended is not violence, but wisdom and canniness... There’s decency in people once you don’t back them into corners, as Louise emails Matt. But occasionally it helps to talk quietly and carry a medium-sized stick.”