A note from our CEO

As we close off Spring and welcome a delightfully warm early Summer, I wanted to update you on some of the exciting things that happened during the month of April.

At the beginning of the month we welcomed Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon when he performed with four of the most stirring spoken word artists on the Dublin stage today; Ciara Ni É, our own Irish Writers Centre ambassador, Cormac Mac Gearailt, Anna D and Stephen James Smith. It was a remarkable evening of poetry leaping off from page into performance.

Prior to that we hosted the Franco-Irish literature Festival by welcoming Maram al-Masri and Theo Dorgan for a fascinating discussion on poetry and place.

In the second week in April we took our newly formed Literary Regional Roadshow to the University of Limerick Creative Writing Festival where we curated a panel discussion, ‘An Island of Many Nations,’ showcasing the rich diversity in Irish literature today. Chaired by Tapasya Narang and featuring Cauvery Madhavan, Suad Aldarra and Afric McGlinchey who collectively mused on the topic of ‘regardless of current place, our roots still seep into our words’. Special thanks to Professor Joseph O’Connor, another of the Irish Writers Centre’s ambassadors, for the opportunity to collaborate as part of his successful festival.

At Cúirt’s 40th celebration, we were delighted to present a festival showcase featuring new writing  from five emerging writers, from across the island of Ireland, as part of our Young Writer Delegates programme.

Meanwhile, back in Dublin, we began filming our new documentary series, Dublin, One City, Many Stories, in partnership with Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and in celebration of the city’s 15th anniversary of this prestigious title. To date we’ve filmed John Banville, Neil Jordan, Joseph O’Connor, Madeleine Keane, Mike McCormack, Emmet Kirwan, Victoria Kennefick and Nandi Zola with a whole host of other contemporary and established writers lined up to film in May/June.

We were also thrilled to embark on a new in-person masterclass series, launching it with multi-million selling novelist Sheila O’Flanagan who delivered invaluable insights on ‘How To Write a Bestseller’. Martina Devlin, renowned historian and journalist, also sold out a masterclass entitled ‘History that’s not fusty or Musty’. This masterclass series will now be a year-round feature of the Irish Writers Centre calendar.

In terms of our all-important writer development programmes we launched New Voices: North a programme for emerging writers living in the North of Ireland which included mentorships with Jan Carson and Stephen Sexton. April also saw the culmination of our 2024-2025 National Mentoring programme, an established and vital support programme which sees us awarding 32 writers with professional mentoring sessions on a substantial writing project. Other supports were awarded to three writers who attended a Notre Dame Kylemore Residency in Connemara and four Ireland-based writers who were selected for our Lamplight fellowship in association with Varuna the National Writers’ House (Australia).

On the 26th of April, we were delighted to kick off our new artist talk series in partnership with Frustrated Writers’ Group where we interviewed the incredible novelist Niamh Campbell about her writing practice.

So suffice to say it’s been a whirlwind month introducing new writer events and initiatives. The support from writers around the country has been truly heartening. There is so much more we can do. Meanwhile we’ll continue to build on our vision of supporting writers at every stage of their journey as they illuminate our lives with their words and ideas.

Watch this space for a mid-summer update. Better still, sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already.

Thank you for reading.

Mags McLoughlin

CEO

May 14th 2025

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