The competition was judged by UCD’s Margaret Kelleher, UCD’s Karlin Lillington and Anne Mulvihill, the sister of Mary Mulvihill.
Cian Morgan, a medical student studying at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) is the 2026 winner of the Mary Mulvihill Award, the science media competition for third-level students that commemorates the late science journalist and author Mary Mulvihill. This year’s theme was on the subject of time and how it is an aspect of our existence that, while difficult to define, deeply pervades our lives and experiences.
Morgan received the award and a cash prize of €2,000 at a ceremony held at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, while TCD physics student Aoibheann Kearins and Ciaran Lynch, who is studying for a BA in Music and Film at University College Dublin, were highly commended and each received a cash prize of €500.
Morgan’s entry, ‘The Cows of Carlow: A Conversation with My Grandad’, is an essay inspired by his own and his grandfather’s personal and historical reflections on the topic.
He wrote about Dublin Mean Time, which is Ireland’s national standard time, established in 1880 and was 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). He also wrote of the Time Ball on the roof of the Ballast Office at Aston Quay, Dublin, which was dropped down a pole every day at precisely 1.00pm, to allow sailors on the Liffey to calibrate their marine chronometers.
