As another challenging year ends we, the Poetry Ireland team, take time to contemplate our work over the past 365 days and consider what makes us grateful. This Year in Review will give you a snapshot of some of our year’s highlights.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It Does.
(William James, Philosopher & Psychologist)
We believe to make a difference requires thought, empathy, and imagination. It takes creativity. All our work: artists’ commissions, residencies, Writers in Schools, publications, professional development for poets and live literature events, require and succeed because of collective and collaborative effort. We are so very thankful to each and every person who participated in and supported our work. Thank you to every musician, technician, arts
worker, community group and audience member. You make our work, our labour, worthwhile.
Each year, we co-plan and co-design our programmes. All our activities and events are about shared values and shared experiences. When we share, we build understanding, trust and community and our community is our antidote to difficulties and hardship. Community is our secret weapon to building collaboration and diversity.
We are very grateful to all of our partners and this year particularly to The Heaney Family, The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation, IMMA, The Department of Foreign Affairs, U.S. Embassy, Dublin, and to Diversifying Irish Poetry. You make our work far reaching and meaningful. We also thank all of our sponsors, donors and subscribers during 2021, and our Board for their valuable input, their time and their dedication.
We would also like to give thanks to our principal funders, the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. We also thank Creative Ireland and every Arts Officer in each county of Ireland. Their partnership and support are what makes our work possible.
Most importantly of all, we give immense gratitude to our poets. It was Claude Monet who said, “to be creative you must be brave”. We give thanks to every poet. Your work, bravery, talent and resilience are the core purposes of our work and are our inspirations.
As we start to plan our coming year, we are full of anticipation and hope, and we look forward to seeing you all in 2022.
Best wishes, Niamh O’Donnell Director, Poetry Ireland
In the early part of the year, our programming included The Fire Gilders: A Celebration of Brigid’s Day and Black History Month (in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland USA and the African American Irish Diaspora Network). The online event featured five poets from the US and Ireland, who read their work and discussed their experiences.
Also in February, we presented IrelandScotland St Brigid’s Day 2021: poetry
films with Julie Morrissy and Iona Lee (with the Scottish Poetry Library and Department of Foreign Affairs).
Poetry Ireland partnered on ‘Come, let the blazing truth blind: poetic responses to the legacy of Ireland’s religious-run institutions’, presented online in April. Also in April, we presented Beautiful Speech: A Tribute to Eavan Boland, marking the one-year anniversary of the much-loved poet’s death.
Our collaborations with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation continued throughout 2021 and included: Poetry Speaks: Poems and Moving Image, an installation of 33 poetry films shown in IMMA’s Formal Gardens and online, Ghosts of the Recent Past (poetry films in response to the IMMA installation) and Poetic Reflections, Words Upon the Windowpane (NYC’s Irish Repertory Theatre).
We were also delighted to produce six new poetry films with the Foundation and poets Stephen Sexton, Padraig Regan, Dawn Watson, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Ciara Ní É and Kimberly Reyes.
We partnered with Festival in a Van to run a number of Covid-safe live performances for community groups around the island. World Animal Day and the theme of One Welfare were celebrated in October, with the online launch of a poetry pamphlet, ‘Of Claws and Hooves and Meadows’, in partnership with the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine.
We supported the launch of Dagogo Hart’s The Home Project, commissioned by Poetry Ireland and funded by the Arts Council’s Commissions Award. The series of three poetry films were warmly received
online. In December, two Poetry Ireland Introductions live events were staged at Smock Alley, featuring all 10 Introductions participants alongside musicians Bróna Keogh and Laura Elizabeth Hughes.
Other events and partnerships during 2021 included Acts of Commission: a two-part showcase of new poetry
commissions of poets of the North of Ireland, Lemme Talk and the European Poetry Festival. We also supported Derek Mahon: A Celebration, organised by Trinity College School of English in November.
Poetry Ireland provided in-kind support to the Working-Class Writing Archive, to Trudie Gorman who was awarded a New Work award from Arts and Disability Ireland to work on her first collection, to the Anthology of Trans Writers, and to the Writing Home workshops, which provide creative engagement for residents in homeless services (with Colm Keegan, Kilkenny County Council and Creative Ireland).
Other supports and partnerships during 2021 included IMRAM, Dublin Book Festival, ‘about blank’ by Adam Wyeth, the John Hewitt Society Birthday Readings, DUBH (led by Felispeaks and partnered with the Dublin Theatre Festival), O’Bhéal, Over the Edge, Amergin Poetry Festival and many more.
Poetry Day Ireland, with the theme ‘New Directions: Maps and Journeys’, took place on 29 April 2021. It was a virtual festival for the second year in a row, due to Covid restrictions. And again, so many people embraced Poetry Day Ireland, getting involved in organising events, attending online workshops and readings, and creating their own poetry and digital content to celebrate the day.
The theme was a hopeful one as during the pandemic, we reviewed the paths
we’ve taken, gotten to know our local areas better than before, and could look forward to being able to plan travelling further afield again, in reality or in our imaginations.
We received extremely positive feedback from event organisers, event partners and attendees. And we were excited to see so much media coverage – The Last Word with Matt Cooper opening with a few lines of a poem, Paula Meehan reading a poem for our health care workers on RTÉ Six One News and RTÉ Lyric FM broadcasting some of our Pocket Poems during the day are just a few of the many highlights.
We are now busy planning for next year’s Poetry Day Ireland, taking place on Thursday 28 April 2022.
We were delighted to be awarded funding for our Poetry Town proposal under the Arts Council of Ireland’s Open Call initiative. And grateful to receive some additional funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
And so began the exciting planning to make poetry the beating heart of community life in 20 Poetry Towns across the island of Ireland over nine days in September!
In partnership with local authority arts offices and with the invaluable help of local town organisers (and
Lian Bell and Conall Ó Riain who joined forces with the Poetry Ireland team), close to 200 public events, initiatives and community workshops were organised across the towns. Schools Awards took place in many of the Poetry Towns, ably managed by our Education team and administrator Camille Lynch.
Poet Laureates for each town wrote a specially commissioned poem reflecting the town and its townspeople, which were unveiled at flagship events. From guerrilla poetry in the supermarket, on stilts, street corners and bicycles, to Café Poems and Prescription Poems, and rain poetry coming to life on street pavements, Poetry Town showed that poetry belongs to everybody, wherever they live.
Pictured at the launch of Poetry Town are Kathleen and Michael O’Loughlin with their grandchildren Billy, Aidan and Conor Byrne.
We were heartened with the huge response to the initiative and would love to see a return of Poetry Town in the future, if funding can be secured.
Poetry Ireland hosted a Zoom workshop, led by Tara Bergin, in February, for emerging poets with a strong track record of publication.
We were delighted to sponsor places to the Dingle Lit Online Poetry Workshop with Enda Wyley for four poets who otherwise couldn’t afford to attend.
In November, we awarded 24 Poetry Town bursaries to poets all over the island of Ireland. The bursaries (of up to €500) will help the poets develop and create new work.
This year’s Introductions selected participants were Simon Costello, Eoin McEvoy, William Keohane, Molly Twomey, Sonya Gildea, Siobhán Ní Dhomhnaill, Laura McKenna, Jamie Field, Sacha White, and Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan.
The series was delivered through workshops with Jessica Traynor, Annemarie Ní Churreáin and Seán Hewitt (with two of the poets also taking part in an Irish language session
We were delighted to announce the Diversifying Irish Poetry critics in July
with Aifric Mac Aodha). A showcase was staged at Smock Alley in December, coinciding with the launch of an ebook of the group’s work.
Diversifying Irish Poetry: Poetry Critics of Colour in Ireland is funded by the Irish Research Council’s New Foundations scheme and is led by Dr Catherine Gander (Maynooth University), run in collaboration with Ledbury Poetry Critics and in partnership with Poetry Ireland.
An introductory workshop with Dzifa Benson on poetry reviewing took place in June, aimed at participants from BAME backgrounds.
Five mentees for the Diversifying Irish Poetry mentorship scheme were selected in July. They are Sophie L.Clarke, Lind Grant-Oyeye, Tapasy Narang, Tanvi Roberts and Lando wo.
Over the last few months, they have been working with their mentors to develop poetry reviews for publication and they will spend two days at the DIP residency, held at Maynooth University, toward the close of the project.
This award for two emerging poets – one from Ireland and one from the U.S. - is organised by Poetry Ireland in partnership with Stanford University with support from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the U.S Embassy Dublin.
Applications for the award opened on Eavan’s birth date, 24 September, and this year’s adjudicators were Paula Meehan and Jane Hirshfield.
The two winners, announced in December, are Emma Tobin and Lauren Green.
Poetry Ireland Review features the work of both emerging and established Irish and international poets, essayists, and reviewers. Three issues of the Review were published during 2021 under the strong vision of Colette Bryce - Issues 133, 134, and 135. Colette’s editorship ends with Issue 135, and it’s hard to believe that her two years in the role have come to pass already.
We thank Colette for her passion, dedication, and insight during her editorship, all of which shone through brightly in each issue of the journal. And for her strong support for Irish
poetry, especially for new voices coming through. We look forward to announcing our next editor in early 2022.
Trumpet, our bite-sized pamphlet packed with reviews, opinions and essays on poetry and the writing life, was published in December. Challenging and often provocative, Trumpet’s revolving guest editorship ensures a new and exciting vision for each issue, and ensures a greater diversity of voices and experiences are found within its pages.
Trumpet 10, with a focus on poets and artists living in the North/NI/Ulster right now, is expertly guest-edited by Micheál McCann, and is available to purchase in selected stockists and from our website.
In December, we were delighted to publish an e-book anthology of the work of the 2021 Poetry Ireland Introductions participants, coinciding with the two-night live Introductions event at Smock Alley. Featuring the very best of Ireland’s emerging poets, This Is What You Mean to Me, is available for purchase online, from Amazon and the Poetry Ireland website.
Cannon, Martin Dyar, Conor Cleary and Roxanna Nic Liam and several existing poems, was launched with an online event on World Animal Day (1 October). The insightful collection of poems, with illustrations by Helena Grimes, delves into the ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic has shed new light on the relationship between humans and the animals with whom we share the earth.
This project was a partnership with UCD School of Veterinary Medicine and was kindly supported by the Science Foundation of Ireland. Copies are available to order on our website.
The poetry pamphlet, featuring newly commissioned work by Moya
‘Of claws and hooves and meadows’ poetry pamphlet
Despite the Covid pandemic, we have had a busy Writers In Schools programme in 2021 with a blend of virtual and in-person visits taking place in 24 counties across the island. Some of these included:
• Pauline Burgess in Shimna Integrated School in Newcastle, Co Down
• Alan Nolan in St Clare’s National School, Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim
• Word and Music series of visits by poet Ger Reidy and musician Tony Reidy, culminating with a visit on Poetry Day Ireland to St Feichin’s National School, Cross, Co Mayo, in partnership with Mayo Arts Office
• Bridget Bhreathnach in Gaelscoil na Laochra, Birr, Co Offaly
• Sheena Wilkinson in St Mary’s Primary School, Magherafelt, Co Derry
• Caroline Busher in Scoil Mhuire in Chapelizod, Co Dublin, as part of a series of visits supported by Fingal Arts Office
• Children’s Laureate Áine Ní Ghlinn in Gaelscoil Osraí, Co Kilkenny
• Sadhbh Devlin virtual visits with Tipperary Library
• Series of visits by Eileen Casey to schools in Portlaoise as part of the Leaves festival
Poet Ger Reidy and musician Tony Reidy host a Poetry Day Ireland visit with St Feichin’s National School, Co Mayo
• Fiona Dowling in Rathdrum Boys
National School as part of a series of visits in Co Wicklow, supported by Wicklow Arts Office
As part of our professional development opportunities and support for writers during these challenging times, earlier this year we offered writers working with children and young people the opportunity to participate in a series of Digital Capacity Building webinars, run in partnership with Children’s Books
Ireland and thanks to Arts Council funding.
This series focused on adapting writer visits and events to a virtual platform, creating and editing video content, and child safeguarding concerns when working online. Approximately 75 writers and storytellers on the Scheme attended these webinars which is evidence of the eagerness and commitment of our Writers In Schools team of writers to upskill and adapt to new ways of working.
Digital Capacity-building Workshops, in partnership with Children’s Books Ireland, and funded by the Arts Council
Our series of Irish-language residencies, thanks to support from Foras na Gaeilge, included Áine Ní Ghlinn delivering virtual workshops to Scoil Cholmcille on Tory Island, Myra Zepf visiting Bunscoil an Bheanna Boirche in Castlewellan, Co Down, and Darach Mac An Iomaire in Scoil na Déise in
Baile Mhic Airt in Co Waterford.
The Our Place Project, which is supported by the Reconciliation Fund (Department of Foreign Affairs), saw residencies in schools in Northern Ireland, which included Deirdre Cartmill in John Paul II Primary School, Belfast; Frank Galligan in Upper Ballyboley Primary School, Ballyclare, and Sheena Wilkinson delivering virtual workshops to Grange Primary School, Co Down.
In February and November, Moira from our Education team attended the WorldWise Global Schools training and information days. This was a great opportunity to meet,
once again, other organisations funded by Irish Aid and to share ideas and experiences.
Recordings with writers sharing their lesson plans and methodologies for delivering global citizenship workshops will be held in the spring of 2022. These will form part of Poetry Ireland’s aid to teachers for post primary level students. The Education team attended webinars for teachers and NGOs with WorldWise Global Schools and engaged with teachers around creative writing programme funded by WWGS through Irish Aid. The Education team also attended the IDEA (Irish Development Education Association) conference.
Poetry Ireland continues to deliver high quality Professional Development Training on Global Education through Literature for primary teachers with the writer John W. Sexton and in collaboration with Clare Education Centre, working with eight schools and in partnership with Clare Arts Office.
The Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition was launched in March with submissions open across six categories (Adult Published, Adult Unpublished, Junior Primary, Senior Primary, Junior Post-Primary and Senior Post-Primary). This year’s theme was ‘Pathways to Peace’. We were
delighted, in April, to publish a booklet of the winning poems from the 2020 competition.
The winners and runners up of the 2021 competition were announced in August and we hosted an online celebration of the competition on Culture Night in September (you can catch up with it on Poetry Ireland’s YouTube channel).
A Poemathon with Older People, organised with the Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin) and Neuroscience Ireland, invited submissions from older people across the island of Ireland during January and February.
The completed poem, with opening and closing lines by musician John Sheahan and edited by Seamus Cashman, captured the feelings of hope, honesty and humour of older people right now in society. It was unveiled in March, featuring a total of 355 contributors. Read the poem here.
Poetry Aloud, the annual poetry speaking competition for post-primary schools, was organised differently in 2021 due to Covid-19 public health guidelines, with virtual entries in place.
Schools were invited to select students to represent their school from any of the three categories (Junior, Intermediate, Senior) and teachers could submit a phone video recording of the students speaking the prescribed poem.
The competition, which Poetry Ireland organises with its partner, the National Library of Ireland, is due to move forward to its next stage in early 2022. Thanks again to University College Cork for its support of the competition.
The Written Word poetry supplement
In March, Poetry Ireland and the Poetry Foundation in the U.S. announced Hope Rhymes, which will highlight each organisation’s respective poetry recitation programmes for young people and strengthening the efforts of both organisations where their work aligns.
Bríd Brophy, one of the contributors to the Poemathon with Older People, pictured in the launch video
Poetry Ireland’s Education and Communications departments were delighted to work on The Written Word poetry supplement, in partnership with the Irish Independent. The supplement, published in April, is aimed at Leaving Certificate English students. Amongst many articles, there was a lovely feature on Writers in Schools – which you can read here
Our Poet in Residence, Catherine Ann Cullen, had a busy second year, despite the challenges of Covid restrictions. In a term extended by three months, she engaged, inspired and supported many communities to interact with poetry. Here are a few highlights:
This online project, which began with a daily duo of prompts on the first day of lockdown in March 2020, continued with weekly prompts for adults and children in Irish and English throughout 2021. It has been a huge source of inspiration and encouragement for participants. A new
challenge, #LimericksUnlimited, was launched this year.
Catherine Ann ran weekly workshops for clients of the centre, which facilitates the re-integration of prisoners in the community.
Weekly online workshops (in-person when restrictions were lifted) were led by Catherine Ann. A website of their fantastic work was launched in October.
Catherine Ann’s work has proven that illuminating the connections between poetry and song helps to break down barriers and resistance to poetry in some people. She continued to strengthen links between Poetry Ireland and An Góilín Traditional Song Club and organised poetry and song events for the Frank Harte Festival (‘Weaving Words’) and the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival (‘Voices of Witness’).
Catherine Ann performing a song for children about the legend of St Brigid’s cloak
for The Written Word supplement. She was an adjudicator for Poetry Aloud and the Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition.
Other projects included working with the SAOL group, Mud Island Community Garden, writing poems on objects in the North Inner City Folklore Collection, Harold’s Cross Stay @ Home Community Festival, an International Women’s Day reading, a Poetry Town Dublin 1 event and videos for Cruinnniú na nÓg and St Brigid’s Day. Catherine Ann wrote a guest blog for the ITMA and an article on poetry
Catherine Ann posted an ‘elevenses’ blog on the 11th of each month on the Poetry Ireland website, showcasing ongoing work. A series of 11 poems on the history of the Poetry Ireland building (11 x 11 for Number 11) is due to published as a broadsheet.
She hosted two engaging Instagram takeovers on the Poetry Ireland account aand we will soon share a legacy video, reflecting on the achievements and impacts of the two-year residency. We thank Catherine Ann for all her energy, passion and thoughtfulness in her time as Poet in Residence.
Thanks to the funders of the project: Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Fund of the Sidney E Frank Foundation, and Rethink Ireland.
We sadly lost valued members of the Irish poetry community in 2021.
Our thoughts are with the families and friends of Máire Mhac an tSaoi,
Brendan Kennelly, Seamus Deane and James J McAuley.
Poetry Ireland is the administrator of the Ireland Chair of Poetry, and the current Ireland Professor of Poetry is Frank Ormsby. Here are just a few highlights from the year – see more at irelandchairofpoetry.org
• Frank Ormsby’s first lecture as Ireland Professor of Poetry, ‘The Honest Ulsterman Revisited’ was released online in May
• Four recipients of the 2021 Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Awards and three recipients of the 2021 Project Awards were announced during the
year - each award is valued at £1,000
• The 2021 Ireland Chair of Poetry Awards Showcase 2021, hosted by poet Stephen Sexton, featured the winners of the awards. A new initiative from the Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust, the event raised the profile of the poets and platformed their work.
• The commemorative anthology, Hold Upon the Door, was celebrated during a special event during International Literature Festival Dublin
Poetry Ireland, in partnership with the Irish Heritage Trust and the Irish Landmark Trust, continues to work towards the development of 11 Parnell Square which will house a vibrant Poetry Centre dedicated to celebrating and supporting poets. The building will include the head offices for the three organisations and the ground floor and first floor will house a café, poetry performance and workshop spaces, and the Seamus Heaney Poetry Library.
Throughout 2021, the Development Steering Committee has worked with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and, in the coming weeks, will announce an open call for tenders for an architectural led team. Over the following months, building work will commence and by December 2023, it is planned that the Poetry Centre will open and become an integral part of the country’s
cultural centres as well as serving the surrounding Dublin 1 community.
In advance of the appointment of a design team and building refurbishment beginning, Poetry Ireland is to take up a new, temporary home. We are delighted to be relocating to The Cregan Library, on Dublin City University’s St Patrick’s Campus, Drumcondra. We are very grateful to DCU for its support and look forward to partnering on new live literature events and artists supports while we are based on campus, after which time we will be returning to the wonderfully enhanced and accessible Poetry Ireland Centre.
From all at Poetry Ireland: Niamh, Elizabeth, Paul, Jane, Lisa, Anne, Eoin, Moira, Catherine Ann, Anna and Mary.
Find out more about our work at www.poetryireland.ie
Thank you for your continued support and looking forward to seeing you in 2022!Photo credits for this page: Bebe Ashley, Lian Bell, Ger Holland, Mark Stedman
