Patrons: Anthony Wade
Arthur Broomfield
Attracta Fahy
James Finnegan
Simon Lewis
Editor: Orla Fay
Published by Drawn to the Light Press
ISSN 2737-7768
Next issue: October 2025
https://drawntothelightpress.com
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Drawn to the Light Press is edited, designed, and produced by Orla Fay.
Cover design Rest by Alan Murphy.
The works included in this issue are copyright of the poets and artists ©2025 and may not be reproduced or changed in any way without the permission of the individual author.
Drawn to the Light Press is ©2025 of the editor.
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Editorial
Of his cover art Rest Alan Murphy says,
I took the picture in Lismore Castle's impressive gardens, where I've been spending some time over the last few months, taking photographs with my canon powershot camera. I put an effect on it using an open source image editor which I think really elevated the image. Matisse's reference to art acting like an armchair comes to mind; summer is a much apprectiated time of rest - and playful exploration - for many.
This issue is dedicated to the memory of my friend Rory O’Sullivan. Rory was the cover illustrator of Boyne Berries Magazine from 2014 – 2020 when I served as its editor. Below, his cover design for Boyne Berries 17. Rest in peace Rory.
– Orla Fay, 15/06/2025
Saint Francis in the Snow
He spreads the snow like wool … Psalm 147:16 (NIV)
From inside my wife’s and my warm little bungalow, satiated with buttermilk pancakes pampered with maple syrup, crispy thick bacon, and Irish breakfast tea,
I see outside a stoic Saint Francis unshivering in the rare Carolina Lowcountry snow, keeping watch perpetually
over sorely missed hair-shedding pets Tomas and Henry and Keats buried below with God.
Most folks who live nearby are mystified, yet childlike delighted by this once-in-a-decade display of what the Psalmist described so poetically.
Even the weatherman who days ago forecast the snow so accurately cannot say why the sky becomes wooly;
but one bets the beloved pets buried below with God— and Francis know.
Eugene Platt
Hazy Days
Beside the farmhouse
The old oak trees stand tall
Providing shelter from the relentless sun.
A dog lies sleeping under one,
The cool grass a welcome balm.
He twitches
Dreaming of chasing rabbits perhaps?
Nearby, verdant hedgerows follow the stream
With frogs in the damp ground unseen, Safe from the foxes and birds of prey.
A faint hum of a tractor
Being driven along a country road
Is the only sound.
All else is tranquil, serene.
Time slowing down
Almost coming to a stop.
Helen Torr
If I was an Animal
If I was an animal I would love to live here near the upper road from Millbeck to Underskiddaw Church Room
looking over at Robinson Hindscarth and Dale Head these heart-tugs on leash always pulling by the sound of water tumbling from Skiddaw a red squirrel sign the A66 a muffledistance away and Millbeck Village Hall originally a reading room founded by Vicar Rawnsley
one of three founding members of the National Trust who held that nature beauty history are for everyone
and all this while Mill Beck thunders along
James Finnegan
Achill Boys
Sun-scorched faces and polyester pride fill the photograph on the front page of the Irish Times, Elverys baked onto their chests in the Australian heat.
They must have turned around, joked about putting a point over the curve of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Achill mourns the loss. Unable to field a football team, its sea-cliffs fortress an amethyst-encrusted land of deserted villages, old and new.
Their plans as big as Easter Island heads, their chance of return narrow as the Salmon Weir Bridge.
Susan Kelly
Cloud Illusions
(With lyrics from ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell,)
A giant swan’s wing flying across the blue. A wisp of lips, in the summer sky, white blossom trees. ‘Ice cream castles’, Joni sang.
Shifting shapes, fleeting past. Mushrooms, spaceships, dolphins, a sleeping bear waking from hibernation.
Cirrus, cumulus. Archangels, snow leopards. A feather. A sign? Searching for meaning. ‘But now they only block the sun’
They cast shadows on the ground, summer rain, steam rising from footpaths. Puddles reflecting the grey clouds. Clouds illusions.
Angela Kirwan
Barbara and the Bush
Reaching and scratching with its pink thorns, the rampant rose bush attacks the garage.
With asbestos shingles cracked and stained, with a threadbare roof like an orange peeled by the chartreuse intrusion— the red horns of the roses blazon a fragrant barrage. On the mangled air, nature violates Barb’s assertion.
For days, her pale hands in the allergenic sun —quivering before the wind like clover blossoms— have dissembled mastery, dismembered much, digging to from where the life force comes, uprooting how green can smell and flowers touch.
Ken Anderson
Dandelions
She plucks the dandelion from its bed, purses her lips and spits a glob of orange-squash breath.
Fairies are loosened, take flight across the garden, but summer is stagnant –few go no further than the tip of her finger:
legs twitching, gasping like fish, wings spittle-wet
stuck fast despite her waggling. She frowns, pinches forefinger and thumb until each one bursts like a cranberry –leaves a smear of orange blood.
Far away, Peter Pan awakens from a nightmare, knowing in his ageless bones, there are children worse than non-believers.
Discovery
There you are, Cepheus, outside my window, as I awake in a startle before first light.
When I was a boy I discovered you on an August night with torch and star map, and then as now how pleasing, your simple shape, five nameless stars, comfort that a house floats above me in this cold, dark sky
Tim Dwyer
Life Was Always Sunny
He never fought in a war
Drove a car
Watched Eastenders
Travelled in a jet
Ate Lasagne or curry
His life was simple
Rural in the city
A world before Pizza
He travelled extensively
Back and forward, up and down
Guard on a train
Cooked lunch on the burner
Of the big black steam engine
He knew his country well
Lived close to his job
Walked to mass
With his wife, my grannie
Rosary beads in pocket
A deep believer
Knew no different
Tended his plot
Cabbage, potatoes
Swedes, parsnips, carrots
Apples and rhubarb
Sun in his heart
Provided for his family
Seven children, boys, girls
Men and women
Rich without cash
Lived a life of working-class luxury.
Mother Sun
I see it now, a peachy curve, in the ethereal light, from my bedroom window, somewhere between mother sun, calm in clouds of goose down, and the waking earth where insects bathe in the morning dew, their drink and food, and leaves whisper to platoons of ants. Queen Ann’s lace. The ripples of a world at work, the saunter to sleepy Robin’s wakeup call.
I pause, with the movements, to hear the blackbird’s sung sonata, to gaze and dance, to count the blades of grass, to listen to each raindrop kiss the sacred soil.
. This earth, these fields I walk and share with the living land I, by chance, in a reverie, a trance, call my home.
This Musee D’Orsay, this Swan Lake, this Ode, outside my walls,
the wonder of Vincent’s sky and waves in fields of wheaten sheaves.
Arles, where he despaired that love alone would fail and lovers grieve.
Safe passage
No babies in my family were ever on time, I was quite sure of this. Unable to buckle my own sandals without sitting down, ten days to go, we went camping at our friends’ lake.
Midsummer in the Valley, a hundred and ten at midday. There was no tent, just mattresses thrown out under the stars. We swam first thing to cool down out to the raft, even though I couldn’t climb up the ladder. Then, breaking the still, an animal cry on the north side of the lake. To the south, the sound of a chase, frantic footsteps as a fawn managed to stay ahead of an old coyote, the doe calling instructions from beyond. We stopped breathing, our eyes on the little one, who reached the edge and hurled itself into the lake. The coyote, panting, empty, watched it cross the water, doe and fawn crying to each other, til, reunited, on the shore, they dashed across the brow of the hill.
We couldn’t stop smiling, a triumph to watch, while our baby made her way across ages, worlds, to kick the waters that dawn, taking us back to meet in the sheltered world of delivery.
Lulu Sinnott
Perpetuum Mobile
for Máire Fitzgerald
A sun wheel breaks through clouds over the headland and caves are punched through the bare rock. Waterfalls run down like fingers tracing the cliff.
Our boat rides over swell after swell where the water is stippled by rain and a suffice of surf whitens the waves. Salt tangs my face.
Dolphins cut the surface with their fins, spin in the water, play around and under our boat, jump over it.
All in motion as nothing rests. A stillness is here in the choppy sea and it’s constant turning.
Diarmuid Fitzgerald
Summer on Baldoyle Bay
A short row across to the Velvet Strand the Schlup-Schlup rhythm of the oars dropping sun-filled jewels on each lift. Bare legs on hot wood as I sat aft watching gannets dive-bombing through gentle waves.
A rope tied to a Cidona bottle hung over the side to swing and chill in the following sea. Hauling our anchor up the beach squinting in the sunny haze golden sand warm underfoot. A blanket thrown down to sit popping the bottle open and passing it around. Swigging this golden nectar fizzing up my nose snorting and laughing as only a child can do.
Anna O Laoghaire
Ballinaharda.
In Summertime, on the Mine Head Lighthouse Road, past Powers field, I come across a track trodden by cows on their way home to be milked. A gate hangs on rusty hinges, moss on stone, wind-blown trees against a powder blue sky. I cross up to Ballinaharda wood, through barbs, shreds of fleece blow idly across half-acres, pass hedges of mottled bark, butter yellow gorse. In the clearing a fox pricks her ears, holds my stare, darts into green-brown fern curling inwards. I turn for homebirds-foot trefoil like stars light my way.
Mary Howlett
Was it all worth it?
We never had any suncream, never even knew what it was. Scorched backs on hay barns, our tops off, under apple trees, when soaking rays beaming down, warm breeze against our skin, feeling summer fleeting.
In bed, our melted skin subsides. Coated in calamine to sooth, our pain and reeling backs. Like a coat of armour, a badge of honour.
As I peel sheets like a thin layer of mould, encrusted above raspberry jam, peeling, through hairs as they stand on my back. Pink, like bubble gum pops.
Paudrig Lee
Metamorphosis
The bike leans against the garden wall, accepts its destiny. Bereft of purpose, it endures, a monument to good intentions.
Wrapped in the tendrils of a stray nasturtium, it is transformed into a living thing. Flowers blaze against the metal frame and sing of summer heat. Wheels breathe green leaves from spoke to spoke, holding their silence as they dream of open roads.
Last Night of the Holidays
On the last night of the holidays
I see the grasses waving at the sun Saying goodnight as we must soon Say goodbye
But the grasses will remain Spreading seeds across Landscapes that seeded Fields of my imagination
The last drops of grain and grape Flavour palates and shared Stimulate conversation between Strangers who share more
Than could be predicted, for trials And tribulations of life often Boil down to a reduction Of common denominators
Vowels and consonants forming patterns Interpreted and understood to varying degrees Until we navigate to different locations Finding our own ways home.
Daithí Kearney
Seaside
That moment, in thick dark water
When you are almost out of your depth
On tiptoe, you balance
Against the slow persuasion of waves
They push you back at the chest
Like a firm, persistent hand,
Uneasy, you know this could go either way. You could lean backwards
Into the dark carriage
Your feet losing contact with the earth
Allow yourself to be held in this strange basket
And carried to the horizon.
Or you could lurch towards the beach
Wilted arms groping for something solid
Watched by a white- hot bead in the sky
Gripped like a hostage, you fight for
The shore, even with its broken teeth
And amputations
Wasn’t it heaven all along?
Olivia Carroll
Soaking it in
Out in the garden soaking up vitamin D, soft hum of bees in the rose bush while small birds peck and scatter seeds. Chirping fiercely, sparrows start a fight, twirl like a ball of wasps into the bush its branches tremble as if possessed until they tumble out, one by one
Horses in the field across the road whinny, toss their heads, take off in a runMorrin’s donkey begins to bawl.
High in blue, two buzzards circle and mew as next door’s dog chases a butterfly. Ginger cat pads slowly across the yard, folds onto his side in the shade.
Behind me in a tree at the top of the field woodpigeon begins a conversation, coos, falls silent, allows the other to reply, from two fields away, over and back. Slight breeze rustles the ash’s new leaves as the sun wheels its way across the sky, sinks lower, dips behind the trees.
Anne Mac Darby-Beck
Early Summer
You were cherry blossoms drifting in a blur.
You were nebulae circling street lamps.
You were a hint of rain in the dust.
You were a face appearing from shade.
Stephen
Shields
Bachelors
I called them auld bachelors like peas in a pod. I seldom said hello to them, because they tended to ignore me when chatting with my father; instant karma for being left out, forgotten, unborn by their sides gazing out into the sweltering fields of summer shimmering with the plosive sound of furze pods opening all around us, tugging at my father’s shirt, pop! pop!
Papaver
Spring days dissolve into summer and I see buried beauty emerge verdant green fronting soft white hairs leaf to bud to stem
silken petals open gloriously white, five crinkled purple splotched but one that bears a heart beneath a dark eye now cast upon the world
Teresa O’Connor Diskin
The Letting Go 20/06/2024
Someday I will disappear into nature and you will not mourn me or miss me because you will know that I have not gone away.
I will be in the petals of every Daisy and in the grooves of bark of every sleeping winter tree. You will hear me sigh on the wind weightless and home whispering to you as has been whispered to me you are never alone.
She calls me now from the cry of the Buzzard to the swish rustling leaves of the trees her open arms a graceful offer I whisper with my last breath of flesh Oh, I do please.
Esther McMorrow Donnellan
Turnaround Tuesday
another morning ache another redemption story on the radio another porridge pot to wash
another email to answer another task to tick off the list another plant to water
another city bus to catch another young man murdering ‘Hallelujah’ another appointment to keep
another creamy oat latte another darling melody in my ears another sunny April day
heralding the summer
Maeve O’Sullivan
Summer Days
My mother was like a medicine woman and so was her mother before her.
They knew about the healing power of the sea to banish not the blue of the ocean but the blue of gloom and doom.
When they would announce that summer is coming and we’ll have lovely picnics by the sea
the promise of it would instantly lift my spirit and then the day would come around like a longed for prize
the waves lapping back and forth to wild shrieks of childhood joy in this eternal place that is always new and always now.
Rachael Stanley
Borrowed Child
Her blue Anglia pulls up outside. My father’s sister, in kitten heels, shift dress and pearls. Nothing like what my mother wears.
Father fills an orange box with fruit, veg and large duck eggs. Mother fills my school case with good clothes. I put on a summer frock and ankle socks. I put on a smile.
All packed up, I climb into the back seat. Polished leather cold on my legs, I cover my knees with my cardigan tuck it underneath.
In the morning, a dull hum, like a broken tuning fork and the rattle of milk bottles.
At the window, a replica of my aunt’s house looks back, a row of houses on either side of the street, lined with cars and lamp posts. Not a field or beast in sight.
For two weeks, I watch as my aunt cooks and bakes. She’s a Culinary Artist.
We eat soup with croutons, quiche and lasagne. Nothing like what my mother makes.
We take the double-decker bus into town, visit museums and galleries and large department stores. In the evening, my uncle takes me to the Phoenix Park to look at animals in the zoo through the railings. At Poolbeg, I collect shells and coloured stones, the smell of the sea in my nose.
When it is over, Aunty Mollie gives me new blue jeans and a white t-shirt and sits beside me all the way home.
Carmel Hogan
Dark Amber
Down by the road our market table was set up. A father, two sisters and customers asking for wooden dippers. We had some mouldy clover, aster and thistle flavour, they could taste, but heather was our savour after a bad summer. You wrote labels, A cachet of almond on the palate.
You were good with words. The cut comb, handcut from the hive was our best seller. We had dads cigar box for the money, and later when he got sick you explained, metastasised to us.
Gerard Walsh
Small wonder
painted ladies arrive on prevailing summer winds a kaleidoscope of butterflies traveling high
to avoid predators, cross the Channel and navigate up the Thames, sure-sensed, orienting by the sun
they find rooftop gardens on the National Theatre mob the thyme and lavender banks until the pink and purple
pattern dark brown. Their lives are a constant journey thousands of miles over their generations, compassing
continents, strong-flying, paper-thin wings catching air currents undeterred while we who see ourselves as astride
the globe, no longer know who we are or how to find our way in the world
Ruth Lexton
Home-Made Mass
Too old to go to church, you dressed-up anyway: in winter sat in front of the Television broadcast, summers had the Radio mass and spoke the responses while I placed two coins in the plate: one for each of us. A third coin from you I spent on me, brought home all the local news, the newly-dead prayed for etc. you loved that word etc etc etc
Noel King
When Pat came back
i.m. Pat, 2018
There was always space somewhere in his house, where I could chat to Pat.
I asked him what heaven was like. “No one came back,” he said, “because ‘it’s too beautiful’.”
He promised he would come back to tell me what it’s like.
Not long after he passed away, I travelled to the Rivieria towards Qeparo
Where children gathered outside their home. Our guide, Ardian, shared sweets from our lunch.
We exchanged our names and felt free to shake hands and cuddle them before we left for the Muzina Pass.
My hand still warms with the child’s hand: the moment Pat came back.
Sinéad MacDevitt
Rain Dance
For me you did a rain dance, for you the rain danced too. A sky full of forest rain swept back to town like your auburn hair then left to fall against the summer pavement.
My heart and sense traded souls, each thought a beat, a pulse, a rhythm of driven grains to dance a life by. For me you did a rain dance for you my heart danced too.
Kevin MacAlan
Reflections
We used to buy cans and sit at the Sparch hoping to see a seal to make sure we’d stay in this new place we tried to make our home while the sun shone on our reddening faces and smiles reflected in the others’ sunglasses
Every winter we dreamed of summer months creating new memories to keep us warm Maybe that’s when closeness became a burden and our summers no longer were enough to keep the stifling shadows away from us
We’ve seen countless seals in the water but only one of us still visits our old spot on bright afternoons when the world is still and the sun gently tickles that same face but my sunglasses now only reflect this place
Patti Sacco
Midsummer Moon
The moon was a mirrored ballroom, the sun, golden barley in a circle of stones. Midsummer a wildfire that blazed over drought-struck hills.
Macha’s motorbike drew wild arcs and circuits round the stubbled fields, goddess in leather, with a brooch and pin
While we smoked ourselves silly at a cairn the council relocated for a straighter road, that long day when the sun did not set.
Our ancestors knew this land was rich: chose here to build their observatories, temples. Places to dream and change.
And we were changed as we watched our many whirling reflections become sun and moon making love, as we danced.
Sparks, heat from our bodies lit up the dark corridors of an empty mansion, chased away the ghosts of other fearful pasts and ensured the season’s turning once again.
Ruth Marshall
The
Crossing
As Eternal Night falls, The boat floats from the shore. And leaves behind the ties that bind And things that went before.
The moon that rises on this night, A blue and sickly pale, Casts her pallor on the boat, And the life within that failed.
It drifts upon a solemn kiss, So cruel yet tender blown, That wafted forth from Death's own lips, To black horizons of unknown.
From the shore that laps with anguish, The ones who live watch on, And regard the boat as it doth float, Until at last, it's gone.
And when it's swallowed by the night, They turn and walk away, To live until Death beckons, "Your boat is in the bay."
Rory O’Sullivan
Notes on Contributors
Island of Wak-Wak Press (Orebro, Sweden) released Ken Anderson’s The Ward at Twilight: Goth Poems, nominee for the 2025 Elgin Award. Red Ogre Review Books (L.A.) released his The Goose Liver Anthology (Mother Goose Meets Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology), also a nominee for the 2025 ElginAward.
Emma Atkins is a poet and novelist currently studying for her PhD at Middlesex University. She has been writing poetry since 2018. Her poetry has been featured in publications including the Stony Thursday Poetry Book, Amsterdam Quarterly, Stripes Magazine, t'ART Online, StepAway Magazine and others.
Anne Mac Darby-Beck has been writing poetry and short stories since childhood. Her work has been published in various anthologies and journals in Ireland such as Drawn to the Light, Sparks, Crannog, Stony Thursday Book, Ragaire etc. She has also been published in British and American magazines such as Scintilla and Superpresent.
Dr Arthur Broomfield is a poet, short story writer and Beckett scholar from Ballyfin, Laois. His has publications include five poetry collections, a study on the works of Samuel Beckett, and a novel, When the Dust Settles. He holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick.
Olivia Carroll is a poet and teacher from Westport, Co. Mayo. Her work has been published in Skylight 47 and The Ocean Magazine.
John Conroy is 78 years of age and he grew up in Cabra West. In his 60’s he completed a degree in local government management. Some pieces have been published in Boyne Berries, Tallaght Soundings, and recently pieces on The Dublin fruit and Vegetable Market, were published in the Dublin Historical Journal. He reads authors like Spike Milligan, Flann O’Brien, Colm Tóibín, John Steinbeck.
Tomas de Faoite was born in Ireland and lives in the Netherlands. His last collection Winter Solstice was published by Uitgeverij Van Kemenade.
Teresa O’Connor Diskin’s work has been published nationally and internationally, including, among other publications: The Galway Literary Review, Skylight 47, Reach Poetry, Drawn to the Light Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, MagPie, and she was shortlisted for Poems for Patience 2019 and 2022.
Esther McMorrow Donnellan writes poetry and novels that discuss themes of nature, biodiversity, internal struggle, mental health and human connection. She attends gatherings with the Inis Creative Writers’ Group and the Clare Poetry Collective. She has a passion for connecting and collaborating with the land and its creatures.
Tim Dwyer’s poems appear in Irish, UK and international journals, and previously in Drawn To The Light. His collection, Accepting The Call, has won the Straid Collection Award, to be published by Templar Poetry in May 2025 (templarpoetry.com). Originally from Brooklyn, NY, he lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
James Finnegan, Dublin born, second-prize winner in 2022 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition. A
collection of poems, The Weather-Beaten Scarecrow (Doire Press, 2022), shortlisted in Farmgate Café National Poetry Award in April 2023. A new collection of poems A Butterfly and Its Shadow (Revival Press, 2024) launched in Derry in December 2024.
Diarmuid Fitzgerald’s first collection of poems, The Singing Hollow, was published in 2021. Two collections of haiku were published, Thames Way in 2015 and A Thousand Sparks in 2018. Alba Publishing published all his books. Subscribe on Youtube @diarmuidfitzgerald and read on www.diarmuidfitzgerald.com.
Carmel Hogan is a writer of poetry and prose and a spoken word artist from Kilkenny. She has been published in several books and magazines and is currently working on her first poetry collection.
Mary Howlett is a poet and artist living in Waterford. Her poetry has been published in The Waxed Lemon, Bangor Literary Journal, Poem Alone, Shamrock Leaf, (Canada), Poetry As Commemoration UCD, A New Ulster, Tinteán (Au) and elsewhere. She is a self-taught mixed media and collage artist. Her work has featured in Drawn to the Light Press, Southlight 37 and Clayhanger Press. Her watercolours are featured in The Bangor Literary Journal and others. She is working on her first mixed media collection.
Daithí Kearney is an Irish poet and musician. From Co. Kerry, he now lives and lectures in Co. Louth on the east coast. His poetry is inspired by his surroundings and his young family. His poems have been recently published in Martello, Drawn to the Light and Field Guide.
Susan Kelly is from Westport, Co Mayo. Her work has been published in poetry journals including Cyphers, Poetry Ireland Review, Crannóg, Revival, Abridged, The Stony Thursday Book, The London Magazine, The Ogham Stone, Boyne Berries.
Noel King was born and lives in Tralee, Co Kerry. His poetry collections are Prophesying the Past, (Salmon, 2010), The Stern Wave (Salmon, 2013) and Sons (Salmon, 2015), Alternative Beginnings, Early Poems (Kite Modern Poetry Series, 2022) and Suitable Music for a View (SurVision Books, 2024). Liberties Press published a collection of Short Stories, The Key Signature in 2017.
Angela Kirwan has graduated with a B.A (hons) degree in Arts and Humanities from Carlow College, St. Patrick’s. She was awarded first place in poetry in the College’s Literary Awards in 2022. She has recently been awarded a Certificate in Creative Writing (Poetry) from SETU. She teaches poetry at Malahide Community School,Adult Education.
Paudrig Lee is an emerging Irish poet, based in East Cork. Smoking Bees is his debut chapbook. His poems reflect nature, history, genealogy, injustices, shepherded ideals & family dynamics. Raised in a family of nine in an agricultural and arboreal surrounding. Involved in local history, genealogy, photography, music and art.
Ruth Lexton is an English teacher and writer. Her poetry has appeared in Abridged, Shooter, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Drawn to the Light Press, The Alchemy Spoon and London Grip. She won second prize in the Hexham Poetry Competition 2023 and was longlisted for the Aurora Prize 2023. She writes at https://inkwasting.substack.com/.
Kevin MacAlan lives in Co Waterford. He has an MA in Creative Writing, and has contributed to many journals, including, An Áitiúil, Howl, The Madrid Review, The Martello, Wild Umbrella, and Dublin Poetry Magazine. He was longlisted for The National Poetry Competition and The Fish Poetry Prize in 2024.
Sinéad MacDevitt’s memoirs were published in Navan: Its People and Ireland’s Own. Her poems were published in anthologies. She was shortlisted for the Francis Ledwidge competitions and was awarded second prize for the Desmond O’Grady competition. Her stories were shortlisted for the Jonathan Swift and Swords Pride of Place competition.
Ruth Marshall is a poet and storyteller. Her poetry is published in journals and anthologies in Ireland and UK, including The Stony Thursday Book; The Art of Place; Into the Further Reaches; Not the Time to be Silent; Washing Windows V; Skylight 47; FIRE - Brigid and the Sacred Feminine.
Alan Murphy lives on a crow-infested housing estate in Lismore, County Waterford. A visual artist and poet who also writes songs, he is the author and illustrator of four collections of poems for children and teenagers.
Anna O Laoghaire is from Baldoyle in Dublin. Her ‘Sentinels’ and ‘Two Women Embrace’ Poetry as Commemoration Project, UCD demonstrate how poetry can be a medium for reconciliation. Shortlisted for Write by the Sea Poetry Competition 2022 and Poems for Patience 2023. Poetry appeared in Sparks Literary Journal 2024, The Poetry Diary 2025. Self-published Ukrainian Duo Poetry Postcards with translations by Katya van Huystee 2025.
Maeve O'Sullivan is the author of six collections of long and short-form poetry from Alba Publishing. The latest is Where All Ladders Start (2024), for which she received an Arts Council literature grant to complete. Maeve works part-time in further education and leads haiku workshops in various contexts. www.maeveosullivan.com.
Rory O'Sullivan hails from Rathmolyon in County Meath. Since his early teens, he has been immersed in the world of gothic and dark poetry, creating evocative ink sketches that mirror these themes. Influenced by the haunting works of Edgar Allan Poe and Algernon Swinburne, Rory’s art and verse resonate with a distinctive and eerie beauty.
Eugene Platt, an octogenarian, was born in Charleston, South Carolina. After serving in the army, he graduated from the University of South Carolina and earned a Diploma in AngloIrish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. His collections Nuda Veritas (2020), Weaned on War (2022), and Slaughter of the Innocents (2024) were published by Revival Press (Limerick). He lives in Charleston with his wife Judith, corgi Bess, and cats Finnegan and Maeve.
Patti Sacco is a German-Italian who writes in both English and her native German. She lives in Galway with her cat.
Stephen Shields lives in Loughrea, County Galway. He writes poetry and Prose. Credits include Poetry Ireland Review, AGENDA, Crannog, The SHOp, THE RIALTO, Southword and others. He has previously been published in Drawn to the Light.
Lulu Sinnott has published in ANew Ulster, Cork Literary
Review, Hive Nature Poetry, Wexford Bohemian, ITACA, via her Berlin Erasmus blog; she leads Creative Writing workshops/performance at Electric Picnic, hosts monthly Open-Mic: Poetry by the Barrow and ArtNetDLR. Member IWC, Dublin Haiku Salon, Kilkenny Writers, publishing a chapbook late 2025.
Rachael Stanley’s poems have most recently appeared in Flare 25 and Flare 26. She has previously been published in Drawn to the Light Press and has been twice commended in the Ledwidge Competition. Her debut collection Back to Infinity was published by Revival Press in May 2024.
Helen Torr lives in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, She has had poems published in various anthologies including The Paperclip (Vol 4 UU), Poetry in Motion (UU & Translink) and 100 Poems For Hearing Dogs (Dream Well Writing Ltd).
Fionnuala Waldron writes long form poetry, haiku and haibun. She was shortlisted for the Red Line Poetry Award in 2020 and again in 2021, her work has been published in Skylight 47, Crow of Minerva, Drifting Sands, The Haibun Journal, Seashores, Failed Haiku, Presence, Prune Juice and Wales Haiku Journal.
Gerard Walsh is from Co. Kildare. His poems have been published in Writers Forum, Drawn to the Light Press, Apricot Press, Skylight 47, New Isles Press, Longford Poetry Anthology 'Painting Words' and he was runner-up in Trim Poetry Competition 2022. He is a part-time library assistant at UCD.
Drawn to the Light Press Summer 2025
Alan Murphy Eugene Platt
Helen Torr James Finnegan
Susan Kelly Angela Kirwan Ken Anderson
Emma Atkins Tim Dwyer John Conroy
Arthur Broomfield Lulu Sinnott Diarmuid Fitzgerald
Anna O’Laoghaire Mary Howlett
Paudrig Lee Fionnuala Waldron
Daithí Kearney Olivia Carroll
Anne MacDarby-Beck Stephen Shields
Tomás de Faoite Teresa O’Connor Diskin
Esther McMorrow Donnellan
Maeve O’Sullivan Rachael Stanley
Carmel Hogan Gerard Walsh
Ruth Lexton Noel King Sinéad MacDevitt
Kevin MacAlan Patti Sacco
Ruth Marshall Rory O’Sullivan
ISSN 2737-7768
