18 September, 2026
Announcing Our Cill Rialaig Residency Awardees 2026
We are delighted to announce the seven writers who have been selected for the Cill Rialaig residencies, in partnership with Cill Rialaig Arts Centre. The chosen writers are Emma Ní Chearúil, Angela Finn, Colm McDermott, Mia Dóring, Lauren Mackenzie, Honor Molloy, and Eva Morrissey.
This iteration marks the eleventh consecutive year of Irish Writers Centre residencies with Cill Rialaig. The awarded writers will spend ten days in Cill Rialaig, locally known as ‘the edge of the world’.
Roe McDermott, 2023 Cill Rialaig Residency awardee said this about her experience: “…Getting to slow down, inhale the beauty of the landscape, and spend the dark moonlit evenings reading and thinking felt like a generous gift.”
WRITER STUDIOS IN THE VILLAGE OF CILL RIALAIG, CO. KERRY
Cill Rialaig Residencies Awardees:
Craoltóir, cruthaitheoir agus scríbhneoir í Emma Ní Chearúil a bhfuil spéis ar leith aici i gcothú pobail, agus i gceol, litríocht, agus cultúr na hÉireann. Tá filíocht agus prós dá cuid foilsithe ag Iris Comhar, ar RTÉ, agus le cloisteáil ar chláracha leithéid de Mheascra ar RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. Tá MA san aistriúchán aici agus dhírigh a taighde ar chinsireacht Shíscéalta Grimm. Tá a saothair roinnte ar ardán aici freisin ag Salon Rógaire, REIC, agus ag Féile Idirnáisiúnta Litríochta Bhaile Átha Cliath, agus is ball den chomharghrúpa Aerach Aiteach Gaelach í. Bíonn Emma ag scríobh do The Irish Times, agus le cloisteáil ar Raidió Rí-Rá atá faoina bainistíocht anois.
Angela Finn is a writer from Dublin. She won 2nd prize in the 2025 RTÉ Short Story Competition. Her writing has appeared in The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, The Moth Magazine, Irish Times, Irish Independent and elsewhere. She won the 2022 Iron Mountain Festival John McGahern Award and the 2020 Madrid Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction. She was nominated for a Hennessy New Irish Writing Award in 2018 and was awarded a Creative Ireland Bursary.
Colm McDermott is a pharmacist and psychology graduate working in the addiction services in Ireland. In 2016, he received an MA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin. His work was shortlisted for the Davy Byrnes Short Story Award and has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Gorse, The London Magazine, and other publications. He has received an Agility Award from the Arts Council and a Dennis O’Driscoll Literary Bursary from Kildare County Council. He is currently working on his first novel.
Mia Dóring is the author of the best-selling memoir Any Girl, which was published by Hachette in 2022. Her writing has been published in From the Well, Ropes Literary Journal, The Bohemyth, Litro Magazine, The Irish Independent, The Sunday Independent, The Huffington Post, Irish Country Magazine and others. Mia is represented by RCW Literary Agency.
Lauren Mackenzie was born in Sydney but has spent her adult life in Dublin. After years working as a screenwriter, she returned to fiction in 2017, completing an MA in Creative Writing. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the Cuirt New Writing Prize and Hennessy New Irish Writing. She has had stories, flash and poetry published in The Moth, Banshee, The Irish Times, The Lonely Crowd and The Stinging Fly among others. In 2021 she won the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair. The Couples, her first novel, was published by John Murray in 2023.
Honor Molloy is a Dublin-born novelist and playwright now living in Ireland. Her autobiographical novel Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage is a Simon & Schuster audiobook. Her writing has appeared in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Writing.ie, Popdust, Liberty Project, Irish Echo and American Theatre. Her award-winning play Crackskull Rowwas a New York Times Critics’ Pick. A Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard, Molloy has also held residencies at Annaghmakerrig, Yaddo and MacDowell. Her work has been presented by Wilde Stages, Dublin’s Queer Theatre Festival and Dublin City Archives & Library. Her current work examines family rupture and emigration.
Eva Morrissey grew up in Kildare and lives in Dublin. She has published short fiction in The Stinging Fly and Winter Papers, and was awarded an Agility Award by the Arts Council this year. She’s writing her first novel.
