This article reports on the formation and electronic characteristics of conducting carbon nanowires produced by swift heavy ion irradiation of a fullerene thin film. This study shows that it is possible to create arrays of carbon nanowires, which are perfectly parallel to each other and perpendicular to the substrate. As-deposited fullerene films exhibit poor field emission characteristics with breakdown fields as high as 51 V/mu m, whereas low dose ion irradiated fullerene film produces a threshold field as low as 9 V/mu m. The present approach of making conducting carbon nanowires by ion irradiation for potential field emitters and large area applications is also discussed.