The 2026 Mary Mulvihill Award on the theme ‘Time’ ​is now open for applications

Deadline for submissions 12.25am Tuesday 7 April, 2026.

DUBLIN, 3 OCTOBER 2025—The Mary Mulvihill Association invites submissions to its 2026 student media competition on the theme of Time’. Entries are sought from students of all disciplines –undergraduate or postgraduate – studying at third-level institutions anywhere on the island of Ireland. The closing date is 12.25am, Tuesday 7 April 2026 (or midnight, Dublin Mean Time).

The topic may be addressed in scientific, critical, imaginative, or other terms. Entries are welcome in any media format: written texts, photos, infographics, comic strips, or other visual forms. Interviews may be presented as text, video, or audio. There are no prescriptions on how it might be approached.

The theme of the award has changed every year, reflecting Mary Mulvihill’s broad interests in science and technology and their interrelationships with other aspects of human culture and the natural world. For the Mary Mulvihill Association, this year’s theme is particularly poignant, as we mark the tenth anniversary of Mary’s death. This is the tenth and final iteration of the Mary Mulvihill Award in its current guisethe Association plans to wind down its activities next year.

Time is deeply embedded in our human experience. Although the concept pervades our lives and determines how we order our activities, in both the long term and the short term, it is difficult to define it in simple terms. Dictionary definitions are not entirely satisfactory. The Oxford English Dictionary describes time as “a finite extent or stretch of continued existence” or the “interval separating two successive events or actions” or “the period during which an action, condition or state continues”. It is quite challenging to consider the nature or essence of time without employing the word itself.

In the first decade of the last century, Albert Einstein radically upended our understanding of the nature of time by developing the Special Theory of Relativity, which debunked the classical idea that time and space were absolute and independent entities. Einstein and later Hermann Minkowski showed they were part of a four-dimensional continuum, in which any measurement depends on the observer’s frame of reference. Thus, to observers moving at different velocities, time appears to elapse at different rates. Einstein subsequently incorporated gravity into this scheme, now known as the General Theory of Relativity. It, too, can alter perceptions of time – and both gravitational and velocity effects have practical consequences for satellite-based navigation systems.

Our relationship with time and with memory, its close relative, is a fundamental aspect of our humanity. Writers and artists have explored it constantly – and time is an intrinsic component of art forms such as music, theatre, film, and dance. Rhythm is also deeply intertwined with time. And while we may most readily associate the phenomenon with music, dance, and poetry, it is also an important aspect of biology. Life also ‘keeps’ time – animals and plants order their lives, including their reproductive lives, around the changing seasons, and circadian rhythms dictate many of the day-to-day biological processes of organisms ranging from humans to microbes.

Seasonal and daily timescales are determined, respectively, by the earth’s rotation around the sun and around its own axis (at a tilt of about 23 degrees). But how we measure time has altered radically from prehistoric observations of celestial bodies from sites such as Newgrange to devices such as sundials, obelisks, hourglasses, water clocks, mechanical clocks, and pendulums. The first atomic clocks, which rely on the resonant frequency of electrons as they move between different energy levels, appeared in the 1950s. Current devices have an accuracy of less than 1 second per 100 million years.

Ireland has made its own contribution to the history of time – or rather of time-keeping. Between 1880 and 1916, the country observed Dublin Mean Time, which was 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time, reflecting its more westerly longitude. It was set at Dunsink Observatory, on the outskirts of Dublin.

To honour that little quirk of history, the deadline for the 2026 Mary Mulvihill Award is 12.25am Tuesday 7 April – or 12 midnight according to Dublin Mean Time.

In addition to the overall award of €2,000, the judges may, at their discretion, make an additional award of €500 for a highly commended entry.

For further information on the award, including guidance to entrants and past winners, see https://marymulvihillaward.ie.

The Mary Mulvihill Award is a project of Remembering Mary, an initiative established by the family and friends of the late Mary Mulvihill (1959–2015) to honour her memory and her work in science journalism, science communication and heritage and to promote her legacy. It administers and awards funds to commemorate her work and its significance.

Further Information:

MaryMulvihillAward@gmail.com

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