Mayo journalist wins Pulitzer Prize for international reporting

Ballina native Declan Walsh has been awarded one of journalism’s highest honours, the Pulitzer Prize, for his outstanding reporting on the conflict in Sudan.

Walsh, along with his colleagues at The New York Times, was named the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner in International Reporting for an in-depth investigation into the Sudanese conflict.

The series of reports uncovered the extent of foreign involvement in the war, the role of the gold trade in fuelling the violence, and provided harrowing forensic accounts of atrocities and famine attributed to Sudanese forces.

Currently serving as The New York Times’ Chief Africa Correspondent, Walsh has long been recognised for his fearless journalism in some of the world’s most volatile regions.

A former student of St Muredach’s College, Ballina, Walsh began his career at The Business Post in Dublin. In 1999, he relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, where he reported on sub-Saharan Africa as a freelance journalist.

He then moved to Islamabad in 2004, covering Pakistan and Afghanistan for The Guardian, before joining The New York Times in 2011.

Walsh’s work has consistently focused on social and political change, and his latest Pulitzer-winning reporting continues that tradition, shining a light on underreported stories that have global significance.

New York Times' International Editor Phil Pan remarked about the Ballina man, 'The indispensable MVP on this team is Declan Walsh. Declan is a beautiful writer, a correspondent many of us around the world have admired him for a long time.

Declan is known for being a great collaborator, and he has a big and compassionate heart, which has long defined his journalism, whether in Pakistan or in Yemen, where he drew attention to another famine."