Poetry Day Ireland

Writer and environmentalist Dara McAnulty recorded a Seamus Heaney poem for Poetry Day Ireland

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.

This year’s theme for Poetry Day Ireland