Guest Writers and Class Descriptions
June 2005

Vivienne Abbott is from Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. She has lectured widely on French language and literature, and received a Gold Medal from the Government of France for her work in promoting French culture in Ireland. Vivienne's literary work has concentrated on the area of Irish political and social history. She is the author of An Irishman's Revolution, and is currently working on a study of the nationalist figure, Thomas Francis Meagher. She is also the author of several very popular books on Irish and French cuisine, including Irish Cooking (currently into its fourth edition) and Menu French Explained, a textbook for Irish schools.

Vivienne's talk will focus on the figure of Thomas Francis Meagher, and will also address the issue of effective research-methods in relation to historical subject-matter.

Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise, Ireland in 1963 and currently lives in Dublin where he has been Writer-in-Residence with Dublin City Libraries Dublin Corporation and Dublin City University. At present he is Programme Director of the Dublin Writers Festival and publisher of the Dedalus Press which publishes contemporary poetry from Ireland and poetry from around the world in English-language translation.

To date he has published four full-length collections of poetry, the first of which, The Unwound Clock, won the 1989 Patrick Kavanagh Award, and was followed by Familiar Things (1993), The Shape of Water (1996) and, in 2001, As the Hand, the Glove, all published by the Dedalus Press. His first short fiction for children, All the Way from China, appeared in 1998 from Poolbeg Press and was shortlisted for the Bisto Book of the Year Award. His non-fiction work includes The Portable Creative Writing Workshop (Salmon Publishing, 1999) and A Short History of Dublin (Marino/Mercier Press, 2000). He regularly reviews new publications for a number of literary journals and newspapers, including the Irish Independent and Sunday Tribune, and currently presents the RTÉ Radio One poetry programme, The Enchanted Way. In addition he has co-presented the RTÉ television books programme, Undercover, has edited Poetry Ireland Review and PORTAL, the official arts and literature journal of the Irish Pavilion at EXPO2000, and has co-edited Dublin Fifteen: Poems of the City, an audio anthology of poetry from Dublin. New and Selected Poems was published in March, 2005.

Pat will read from his New and Selected Poems. He will also discuss his work, and Irish writing generally, with the class.

Deidre Brennan is a bilingual writer of poetry, short stories and drama. Born in Dublin, she received her Primary education in Clonmel and her secondary in the Ursuline Convent in Thurles. She studied English and Latin at University College Dublin for her BA followed by the Higher Diploma in Education.

She has six collections of poetry I Reilig na mBan Rialta (Coiscéim 1984), Scothanna Geala (Coiscéim 1989), which was a Poetry Ireland 'Choice of the Year', Thar Cholbha na Mara (Coiscéim 1993), and Ag Mealladh Réalta (Coiscéim 2000), an Oireachtas prizewinner, The Hen Party (Lapwing 2001) and Beneath Castles Of White Sail (Arlen House 2003). She has poems in Junior Certificate, Transition Year, Leaving Certificate, and Royal Irish Academy of Music text books.

She won first prize in the Dún Laoghaire Literary Competition in 1994. She has poems in Junior Certificate, Transition Year, Leaving Certificate, and Royal Irish Academy of Music text books. Her English poetry appears in various literary magazines such as Poetry Ireland, Riverine, The Waterford Review, The Works, Windows, Writing Women, etc. She is also a contributor to The Great Book of Ireland.

She is anthologised in Wildish Things (Attic Press 1989), An Fhilíocht Chomhaimseartha 1975-1985 (Coiscéim 1987), Sruth na Maoile (Cannongate/Coiscéim 1993), and Ireland 's Women, Writings Past and Present (Gill and Macmillan 1994).

Her short stories have been published in The Irish Times, (Scéalta don Samhradh, 1992, 1994, 1996), Passages, Anois (June 1995), and Comhar (December 1995). A collection of short stories won Duais Bord na Gaeilge in Listowel 1996.

A drama in Irish was short listed by An Chomhlachas Náisiúnta Drámaíochta in 1993. A rehearsed reading of a play The Milky Light of Galaxies was done by Glasshouse Productions in The Project Theatre Dublin in 1994. She won an Oireachtas prize for Radio drama in 1994 and a six-part drama series Go to Blazes was broadcast on RTE Radio in 1994.

Her work and biography are the subject of Aoife Nic Fhearghusa's Glór Baineann, Glór an Léargais: An tSochaí, an Bheith agus Dánta Dheirdre Brennan (Coiscéim 1998). A founder member of Éigse Carlow Arts Festival in 1978, Deirdre Brennan acted as Chair and Secretary during the early years. She was one of a group instrumental in establishing Gaelscoil Eoghan Uí Thuaraisc and is still involved as Chair of the Board of Management. She was later involved in founding Gaelcholáiste Cheatharlach. She was also a founder member of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí in Carlow and acted as Chair and Secretary. She was a member of the Carlow Glór na nGael Committee during a period when the National Award was won on two occasions. She was active for many years in Carlow Little Theatre and served as President and Secretary as well as acting and directing. She is currently organiser of the Literary Programme for the Performing Arts Centre.

David Butler is Education Officer at the James Joyce Centre, Dublin, where he runs talks, lectures and workshops on all aspects of the Irish writer. He is also presently engaged in giving a twelve week creative writing course at the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin, and gave a similar course at the Draíocht Theatre, Blanchardstown last autumn. He is a fully qualified teacher and for five years taught undergraduate Spanish literature part-time at Trinity College, Dublin, while completing a Ph.D. on Latin American literature.

David's creative writing has won a number of prizes. His short stories have twice won the Maria Edgeworth Award, while his poetry has won, among others, the Ted McNulty, Brendan Kennelly, Golden Pen, and this year's Feile Filiochta International Awards. His collection Via Crucis was runner up for the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2002. His novel The Last European and inaugural poetry collection Via Crucis have both been accepted for publication later this year, by Wynkin de Worde (Galway) and Dedalus Press ( Dublin ) respectively. Last year, three of his books appeared in print, An Aid to Reading Ulysses, Joyce/Pessoa, The Mirror and the Mask, and Selected Pessoa, his translations from the Portuguese poet.

David will talk to the class about writings of James Joyce and the connections between Joyce's fiction and the literature produced by Samuel Beckett.

Evelyn will discuss the art of creative non-fiction writing with the class.

Ita Daly is one of Ireland 's best known novelists and short story writers. Her work has appeared in Irish, British and American publications, including The Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories. The Lady with Red Shoes, a collection of stories was published by the Poolbeg Press in 1980 (reprinted in 1995). She has won the Hennessy Literary Award on two occasions for her shorter fiction.

Since the mid-1980s, she has written a number of popular and critically-acclaimed novels: Ellen appeared in 1986, and was followed the next year by A Singular Attraction. (Both of these works were re-printed in 1995.) A third novel, Dangerous Fictions, appeared in 1987. All Fall Down and Unholy Ghosts were published in 1992 and 1996, respectively. Ita has also written a book for children, Candy on the Dart (1989). In 2001, her Irish Myths and Legends was published by the Oxford University Press. Ita lives in Dublin, where she continues to work as a writer and teacher of creative writing.

Ita will conduct a seminar/workshop on the craft of the short-story.

Gerald Dawe grew up in north Belfast during the 1950s. He was educated at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. From 1976 to 1987 he taught at UCG (now the National University of Ireland, Galway ). During this period he established and edited Writing in the West. He was a founder member of Poetry Ireland and contributed in the early stages of the 'Writers in Schools' and 'Writers in Prison' schemes. His first collection of poems, Sheltering Places was published in 1978. His second collection of poetry, The Lundys Letter (1985), was awarded the Macaulay Fellowship in Literature.

Other awards include an Arts Council Bursary for Poetry, the Hawthornden International Writers Fellowship and the Ledig-Rowholt Foundation Award.

His subsequent poetry collections are Sunday School (1991), Heart of Hearts (1995), The Morning Train (1999) and Lake Geneva (2003). In the mid-1980s Gerald Dawe founded the literary review Krino, which he edited for ten years. He has given readings and lectures throughout Europe and in Australia and Canada. Since 1987 he has been a member of the School of English at Trinity College, Dublin where he is Lecturer in English and Director of the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing. He lives in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin. He is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and was recently appointed Burns Visiting Professor at Boston College.

Gerald will present a cross-genre discussion on the subject of creative writing.

Desmond Egan, an internationally acclaimed poet, was born in Athlone, Ireland and lives near Newbridge, Co. Kildare. He has a B.A. from Maynooth and an M.A. from University College, Dublin. He has published 18 collections of poetry with most of them translated into French, Dutch, Italian, German, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish and other languages. He has published a collection of essays and translations of Medea and Philoctetes. Scholars Hugh Kenner and Brian Arkins have edited books of criticism on his work.

He has won many prestigious awards; among them, the National Poetry Foundation of USA Award, Chicago Haymarket Literary Award, The Bologna Literary Award, and Macedonian Poetry Prize. He was the first Poet-in-Residence at University College, Dublin. He was Poet-in-Residence at Kansai University, Japan, and granted a Doctor of Letters at Washburn University, Kansas, USA. He has spoken at international conferences on T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats. G.M. Hopkins, Patrick Kavanagh and James Joyce.

Desmond reads his poetry and directs literary workshops at universities all over Europe, the United States, and also in Japan. He visited Carlow University this past spring, and agreed to be a mentor for the MFA program in Ireland. He is known as a master teacher.

He has remained the Artistic Director for The Hopkins Summer School, which he founded in 1987. It is recognized as one of Ireland 's most prestigious literary seminars, attracting scholars to Monasterevin from all over the world to share research on Hopkins, his time and influence.

Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962. Her short stories appear in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta and in most notable anthologies of Irish fiction. Her first collection The Portable Virgin won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1991. Novels include The Wig My Father Wore, and What Are You Like? which won the Encore Prize and was short listed for the Whitbread Prize, and The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch. Occasional essays have appeared in The London Review of Books, The Guardian, The Dublin Review and Harpers (USA). Her collection of essays about motherhood, Making Babies, is out in Vintage paperback.

Vona Groarke was born in the Irish Midlands in 1964. Her poetry collections include Shale (1994), Other People's Houses (1999) and Flight (2002), shortlisted for the Forward Prize (UK) in 2002 and winner of the Michael Hartnett Award in 2003. In 2004 Flight and Earlier Poems was published by Wake Forest University Press in the US. Poetry Prizes include the Hennessy Award, the Brendan Behan Memorial Prize, Strokestown International Poetry Award, the Stand Magazine Poetry Prize, and runner-up in the Times Literary Supplement Poetry Competition (2003). She has been Writer-in-Residence with the National University at Galway and at Maynooth, and with Cavan County Council. She was co-holder of the Heimbold Chair in Irish Studies at Villanova University (Spring 2004).

Vona will present a reading of her poetry to the class, as well as conducting a joint-lecture on modern Irish literature, with her husband, the writer Conor O'Callaghan.

Sean Hardie, in the 1960s and 1970s, worked for the BBC as a Producer/Director of TV Current Affairs programmes 24 Hours, Panorama, and Newsnight. In 1979 he moved to comedy. Over the following fifteen years he co-created and co-produced for the BBC ground-breaking programmes such as Not the Nine O'clock News, Spitting Image, The State Were In and The Lenny Henry Show. In addition to two BAFTA's his television work has won the Silver Rose of Montreux, a US Emmy, the United Kingdom's Writers Guild, the Broadcasting press Guild, and the New York Film Festival.

After a period as Head of Entertainment for BBC Scotland he moved to Ireland in 1985 to concentrate on writing. Since then he has published three well-received novels: The Last Supper (1991), Right Connections (1993), and Till the Fat Lady Sings (1994). He has also contributed articles and columns for the London Independent and the London Times, worked as course director of TV and Film script courses for Screen Training Ireland, and written a commissioned screenplay, The Emerald Isle, for Channel Four. He is currently writing a non-fiction book for Harper Collins about social and cultural change since 1945 and a commissioned play for the PPP Theatre Company, Glasgow. Sean has been awarded residencies and/or bursaries by the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, the Heinz Foundation/Hawthornden Castle, Cill Railig, The Heinrich Boll Trust and Chateau Lavigny in Switzerland. In 2003 he represented Ireland at the SudEst Cultural Forum in Moldova and was a guest lecturer at the WICE Creative Writing Summer School in Paris in 2004. He lives in Co. Kilkenny with his wife, the poet and novelist Kerry Hardie.

Sean's talk to the class is entitled: ‘Don't Write What You See, See What You Write'.

The objective of the class is to show students how they can make better use of thier imaginations. The class will draw on the work of a number of writers from the past and the present - T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Dante, Heaney, Kipling, Sasha Sokolov, Eilean ni Chuilleanain, Jose Saramago, Birago Diop and Bernard MacLaverty.

James Heaney is a lecturer in English Literature and Irish Studies at Carlow College. He previously worked in the English Departments at Maynooth University and the Mater Dei Institute of Education, as well as the Hispanic Department at Trinity College, Dublin. He teaches primarily on modern drama, the realist novel, and modern Irish writing. He is also interested in comparative literature, and has recently completed a Ph.D. project at Trinity College, Dublin, entitled “Unexpected Landscapes: Literature and Revolution in Ireland and Spain, 1913-39.”

Awards include the prestigious Pierce-Malone Scholarship in Mental and Moral Science for 1996, from the National University of Ireland, and a Government of Ireland Research Scholarship for the years 1998-2000. He has published articles on modern Irish literature and culture in the Irish University Review and New Voices in Irish Criticism. In May 2003, his one-act play Awimbawey was produced at the Project Theatre in Dublin as part of the Fishamble Theatre Company's season of short plays by new Irish writers.

Eugene McCabe was born in Glasgow in July 1930 of Irish parents. His published plays for stage include King of the Castle (Dublin, The Gallery Press/Newark, Proscenium, 1978); and his one-act plays Pull Down a Horseman/Gale Day (Dublin, Gallery, 1979). His plays for TV include Roma (Dublin, Turoe & RTÉ, 1979); and his trilogy Victims, which consists of ‘Cancer', ‘Heritage', and ‘Siege'. ‘Cancer' won the Writers Award in Prague, and second prize in the Prix Italia. His short fiction includes the novella and stories Victims: A Tale from Fermanagh (London, Gollancz/Cork, Mercier, 1976); Heritage and Other Stories (Gollancz, 1978); Christ in the Fields, A Fermanagh Trilogy (London, Minerva, 1993); Tales from the Poor House (Oldcastle, The Gallery Press, 1999); and Heaven Lies About Us ( London, Cape, 2005). His highly acclaimed novel, Death and Nightingales was published in 1992. He lives in Monaghan.

Eugene will read to the class from his prose-fiction, concentrating on the first chapter of his novel, Death and Nightingales, and his short story, ‘The Orphan', from Heaven Lies About Us. He will then discuss his work with the class.

Conor O'Callaghan was born in Newry, County Down, in 1968, and grew up in Dundalk. The History of Rain, published by The Gallery Press in 1993, was shortlisted for the Forward 'Best First Collection' Prize and won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. His second collection, Seatown, was published in 1999. A limited edition chapbook, A History of 'Hello ', was published by Phoenix Press in 2003. He has been writer-in-residence at University College Dublin and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, and co-holder of the Heimbold Chair in Irish Studies, Villanova University, Pennsylvania. He was also director of the annual Poetry Now festival in Dun Laoghaire from 2000-2003.

Apart from poetry, he has written widely on sport. His radio documentary on cricket in Ireland, 'The Season', was produced by Dick Warner in 1996 and has been repeated several times. A further essay, 'Jolly Good Shot Old Boy', appeared in the anthology Playing the Field: Eleven Irish Writers on Sport (New Island 2000). 'One-One', his comic prose memoir of the public furore surrounding Ireland 's involvement in the 2002 football World Cup that appeared in The Dublin Review, eventually became the book Red Mist - Roy Keane and the Football Civil War (Bloomsbury 2004). Conor lives with his family in Dundalk, County Louth.

Conor will read to the class from his non-fiction prose work, Red Mist - Roy Keane and the Football Civil War. He will also conduct a joint-lecture on modern Irish literature with his wife, the poet Vona Groarke.

Mary O'Donnell is a poet, novelist, translator and critic who is based in Co. Kildare, Ireland. She has published four volumes of poetry, most recently September Elegies (2003) and has scripted three series of poetry programmes for the Irish national broadcaster, RTE radio. Her critically acclaimed third novel, The Elysium Testament, appeared in 2004. Her work has been published in literary magazines and journals in Ireland, the UK and the USA and anthologised in collections in Ireland and abroad. In recognition of her outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland she became a member of Aosdana in 2001. Membership of this organisation of 200 living Irish artists is by peer nomination and election. Mary O'Donnell is currently presenting ‘Crossing the Lines', a series of radio programmes on European poetry in translation.

Michael West has worked extensively with The Corn Exchange, the award-winning Irish theatre company. His latest play, Dublin by Lamplight, has toured Ireland and will play in the Edinburgh Fringe this August, at the Traverse.

For The Corn Exchange he has also written Foley, which toured the United States in Spring 2003, as well as playing at the Traverse and Hampstead; the stage adaptation of Lolita (Abbey/Peacock; A Play on Two Chairs; a translation of The Seagull; and parts of Car Show.

In collaboration with TEAM, he has written two plays for children: Forest Man and Jack Fell Down. Other original plays include Monkey; Snow; The Evidence of Things: The Gunpowder Plot; and two pieces for radio, “The Death of Naturalism” and “Chaste Diana.”

He has also translated or adapted many texts, including Stabat Mater Furiosa by Jean-Pierre Simeon and The Separation of Body and Soul by Calderon. His acclaimed translation of Death and the Ploughman for the Comedie de Reims has been produced in London and most recently in New York in a production by SITI Theater Company, directed by Anne Bogart.

He is published by Methuen.

To describe his talk, “Great Hatred, Little Room,” Michael writes:

The Celtic Dawn rose and set on a fantastically brief and prolific period of Irish letters. An Irish tradition was resurrected, praised and crucified in the space of a few years. From Lady Gregory's treatment of the epic Cuchulain and Ulster cycle, via Yeats's heroic poetic drama, to Joyce's grand subversion of Irish and Greek myth took less than twenty years. The same period saw Synge's brief dramatic life explode in riot and the glorious career of Wilde came crashing down. A look at the role of Dublin in the work of these writers and some unexpected parallels in the writings they have left us.

Ellie Wymard, the director of the Master of Fine Arts program, is a professor of English at Carlow University and a published author. Her critical essays on Kate Chopin, Barbara Pym, J.F. Powers, Annie Dillard, John Irving, John Fowles and Mary Gordon are published in academic journals, such as Modern Fiction Studies, Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South, Studies in Short Fiction, Cross Currents, Commonweal and The Month (London, England). A recent example is “The Quest for Ritual and Celebration in the Comedic World of Barbara Pym,” in “ All This Reading ”: The Literary World of Barbara Pym Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and London : Associated University Presses, 2004.

She is the author of Conversations With Uncommon Women: Insights from women who've risen above life's challenges to achieve extraordinary success (AMACOM, 1999); Men on Divorce (Hay House, 1994), and Divorced Women, New Lives (Ballantine, 1990). Conversations was also translated and published in South Korea. Talking Steel Towns: The Women and Men of America's Steel Valley Bring It Back to Life is ready for publication.

As an author, she has appeared on radio and television shows throughout the United States and spoken before professional and general-interest groups on topics related to her books. For The Critic she wrote a series of essays based on interviews with Anna Quindlen, Alice McDermott, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lee Smith, Mary Higgens Clark, among others. Before an audience of 1,200, she interviewed Amy Tan for the Drue Heinz Lecture Series in Pittsburgh.

Ellie Wymard has an earned doctorate in American literature from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been a Distinguished Speaker for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council Commonwealth Speakers Program.

Past Residencies