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In my debut poetry collection, Bloodroot, (Doire Press, 2017), I first began to tinker with personal history by peeling back the layers on family ancestry. The title poem references the story of a family member who was sent to the Castlepollard Mother and Baby Home in the 1950s and who became parted from her firstborn child for almost forty years. In my follow-up collection, The Poison Glen, (The Gallery Press, 2021), I revisited the theme of family separation, this time with a lens on the ‘missing’ child and looking to the left behind sites of former church and state industrial or ‘reform’ schools and other ‘care’ institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some poems draw directly from my girlhood experience of being raised in a family that fostered children. Altramas (the Gaeilge word for fosterage) is a concept deeply embedded into ancient Irish culture but today the practice looks very different. One of my poems remembers the day a teenager came to the family home to say a last goodbye to the baby she was about to relinquish to adoption. The first mother; the ‘ghostgirl’. It was an encounter that shifted my whole understanding of what it means to come of age in a patriarchal society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poetry is discovery and poems revolve out of my subconscious the way dreams revolve, slowly and over time. In the same way that speaking a dream aloud seems to alter the dream, the act of writing is, by nature, transformative. In my role as UCD\/Arts Council Writer in Residence 2025, I’ve had the gift of designated time to evolve a series of new projects and to consider certain relevant questions: Cad is br\u00ed le stair fholaithe n\u00f3 doil\u00e9ir a scr\u00edobh? Cad iad na d\u00fashl\u00e1in? Cad iad na freagrachta\u00ed? What does it mean to write hidden or obscured histories? What are the challenges? What are the responsibilities? These questions have been greatly nourished by the time spent with university students, staff and alumni through a series of public workshops titled Poet as Troublemaker. Through these tailored poetry workshops I’ve encouraged participants to think of themselves as witness to family stories, social histories, and the living culture of folklore, magic and the Otherworld. Together we’ve opened up conversations about the place of witnessing in Irish literature, and looked at the history of the Irish filidh. We’ve untangled the difficulties of writing trauma, hurt and social injustice, and embraced the possibilities of working with native rituals and ceremonies passed to us \u00f3 ghl\u00fain go gl\u00fain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I began my residency term in January, I was given a spacious writing desk and a large, clear window in the Newman Building that overlooks the leafy campus. Amazed I was to watch the trees come into full bloom. Still, I am often to be found in the dark corners of the UCD National Folklore Collection, buried in the treasure trove of their books, handwritten manuscripts, audio recordings, videos and photographs, drawings and paintings. The National Folklore Collection is one of the largest collections of folklore material in the world and the mere, papery smell of the rooms never fails to thrill me. Truly, I could not have dreamed of a better location to develop my latest poetry collection ‘A Hymn to All the Restless Girls’ (due in November 2025 with The Gallery Press). These poems celebrate the girl who appears to be an outsider – the rebel, the truth speaker and the one who is, often, necessarily a troublemaker. She is the kind of girl who is always questioning and searching. In some poems she takes the figure of Mary Thaidhg, in others she is recognisable as public figures from Irish history or mythology. The book’s title is inspired by A Restless Life<\/em>, the autobiography of the late poet and novelist Leland Bardwell, and many of these poems in this third collection are carefully hand-stitched with folklore, Gaeilge words and the atmosphere of rural living. The book features a long poem titled ‘Raven lore for a Restless Girl<\/em>‘, which weaves together elements of ‘fiachaireacht’ (the art of watching the ravens for omens) with snippets of material pulled from cabinets of the National Folklore Collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like most poets, I am often working on several projects at once. In addition to the delivery of workshops, poetry readings and one-to-one mentoring, I am developing a new opera libretto titled The Curing Line<\/em> for Straymaker, a new company led by Irish composer Michael Gallen. T\u00e1 an ceoldr\u00e1ma bunaithe ar \u00e1r dtaighde lean\u00fanach ar thraidisi\u00fain dh\u00fachasacha na h\u00c9ireann maidir le “leigheasanna a dh\u00e9anamh”. Leanann s\u00e9 t\u00e9ama\u00ed an leighis, an bh\u00e1is, agus an tobchliste comhshaoil, tr\u00ed sc\u00e9al a phl\u00e9ann, agus muid ag smaoineamh gur ruda\u00ed \u00e9ags\u00fala iad beatha an duine agus an timpeallacht, go bhfuil ag teip ar an tsocha\u00ed a admh\u00e1il go bhfuil bunchodanna d\u00ednn f\u00e9in agus d\u00e1r gcult\u00far ag dul in \u00e9ag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mar chuid den obair seo, bhain m\u00e9 taitneamh as daoine a chur faoi agallamh; daoine a bhfuil leigheasanna teaghlaigh faighte acu le haghaidh tinnis ar n\u00f3s fuili\u00fa, asma, faithn\u00ed agus craosghalar srl. B’aistear thar a bheith suimi\u00fail \u00e9 agus tr\u00edd an tionscadal seo chuaigh m\u00e9 i muin\u00edn mo chreideamh i dtraidisi\u00fan r\u00fandiamhair agus muirneach. Arna choimisi\u00fan\u00fa ag Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris, t\u00e1 an ceoldr\u00e1ma l\u00e9irithe ag Straymaker i gcomhar le F\u00e9ile Eala\u00edon Chill Chainnigh, Miroirs \u00c9tendus, Once Off Productions agus F\u00e9ile Ceoldr\u00e1ma\u00edochta Ch\u00f3banh\u00e1van. T\u00e1 Duais Fedora, an duais cheoldr\u00e1ma is m\u00f3 ar domhan, buaite ag The Curing Line<\/em> cheana f\u00e9in, agus beidh s\u00e9 ar st\u00e1itse den ch\u00e9ad uair ag F\u00e9ile Eala\u00edne Chill Chainnigh i m\u00ed L\u00fanasa 2026 sula dt\u00e9ann s\u00e9 ar camchuairt in \u00c9irinn agus go hidirn\u00e1isi\u00fanta sa bhiaiste in 2026\/27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UCD\/Arts Council residency has offered me a year to ground my practice in what I love to do. Is aoibhinn liom cearda\u00edocht agus r\u00fandiamhair na fil\u00edochta. Is bre\u00e1 liom an t-idirphl\u00e9 a eascra\u00edonn as comhoibri\u00fa cruthaitheach. Is bre\u00e1 liom an ‘immram’ n\u00f3 an turas isteach go dt\u00ed an Saol Eile agus a bheith le fil\u00ed at\u00e1 ag teacht chun cinn ar an gc\u00e9ad aistear i dtreo an leathanaigh. I have benefited hugely from the exposure at UCD to world-class scholarship, expertise and research. Last spring I was lucky enough to take several of the UCD Earth Institute campus walks where among other things I learned about ‘Hanami’, the Japanese traditional custom dedicated to admiring the blooms of cherry trees. What a gift it has been to write on a campus full of wildflowers and in the presence of lakes, ducks, swans; to be thinking and dreaming alongside a diverse community. As a child I watched my father cut turf and work on fishing trawlers as my mother’s knitting circle made Aran jumpers to order. Making was a way of being in relationship and, contrary to what many believe, even poetry does not get made in isolation. It has been extraordinarily energising to be here, in this environment, where making in collective spaces is embodied and valued. I love being here with the ordinary ritual of making a poem from scratch; of being with that lovely labour of wrestling with an image, a sentence, a word. Poetry is a way of sitting with uncertainty. B\u00edonn t\u00fa i gc\u00f3na\u00ed ag dul sa tseans. Caithfidh t\u00fa tos\u00fa sa dorchadas gan aon rud a bheith ar eolas agat agus ligean duit f\u00e9in a bheith saor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n