Notre Dame Kylemore Residencies

The Irish Writers Centre is thrilled to announce the second year of our partnership with Notre Dame Kylemore. Three writers will be awarded with a fully catered six-day residency opportunity from Monday 14 April to Saturday 19 April, 2025 in the beautifully restored Notre Dame Kylemore on the grounds of Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, Co. Galway.

Awarded writers will also have access to the Kylemore Estate, Victorian Walled Gardens, Gothic Chapel and museum. One of the residency places will be reserved for a disabled writer who may require wheelchair access and accessible toilets.

In keeping with goals 1, 2 and 3 of the IWC 2022-2026 strategy, this residency opportunity will support emerging and professional writers to advance their craft and career with confidence and resilience while also cultivating an engaged community of writers and the strategic alliances that support our ambitions.

About the Residency

When does the residency take place? 

Monday April 14 to Saturday April 19, 2025 (five nights)

The stunning beauty of the Connemara landscape provides the perfect setting for inspiration and reflection. Take time to complete a piece of work or continue writing at your own pace in a quiet and comfortable environment.

Awardees will receive:

• Private en-suite bedroom (room includes desk space)
• Fully catered meals prepared by an in-house chef
• Access to the abbey grounds, i.e. Kylemore Estate, Victorian Walled Gardens, Gothic Chapel and museum
• Communal writing spaces: The Classroom (a quiet space with plenty of desks) or the top floor lounge (high tables and sofas with inspiring scenic views of the Connemara mountains)
• Optional talks/workshops: up to three 1-hour talks or workshops with  writer-in-residence Dionne Irving Bremyer are programmed during the residency and awardees are invited to take part

Last year’s recipients: (left to right) Henrietta McKervey, Kieran Fitzgerald and Rose Ugoalah

This residency also provides the opportunity to meet with your writing peers and belong to wider community of writers. For further information about the residency, please look on the Notre Dame Kylemore website here.

 “It was a great week. The facilities were excellent. The organisation was smooth. The atmosphere was encouraging, enjoyable and industrious.  I was the recipient of a space which you reserved for somebody with a disability. People could not have been more accommodating and kinder.”

  – Kieran Fitzgerald, Kylemore 2024 awardee 

Eligibility

This is an open call to writers, over 18 years of age, resident on the island of Ireland.

This opportunity is open for emerging and professional writers (there are three places in total): 

• Professional writers who are published and would qualify as a professional member (see criteria here).
• Emerging writers who can demonstrate a commitment to writing e.g. creative writing training or courses undertaken, journal publications, awards or notable mentions, or other recognisable achievements.

This opportunity is for fiction writers and non-fiction writers only; acceptable forms/genres are: 

• Fiction: prose, novel, short stories, screenplays; stage plays
• Creative nonfiction: memoir; auto-fiction; essays

On this occasion, poetry is not included.

This opportunity is open to writers writing in the English language. We also welcome applications from writers writing in the Irish language.

One of the residency places will be reserved for a disabled* writer who may require wheelchair access and accessible toilets. A space for a supporting carer is also possible, as needed. For further information on Kylemore’s level of access, please read PDF document for a detailed descriptive route with images, including pathways, bedroom, toilet and lift access.

Please note that it is responsibility of the writer to pay for a carer for the duration of the residency, however Kylemore are able to provide free accommodation for a personal carer.

We will also prioritise an additional place for a writer from a background typically underrepresented in Irish literature. We particularly invite applications from Black, POC (person of colour), Traveller, Roma, LGBTQ+, low income, and disabled writers.

*The definition of ‘disabled’ we are using refers to the Social Model of Disability which holds that people with impairments are ‘disabled’ by the barriers operating in society that exclude and discriminate against them.

How to Apply

If you are interested in applying please submit your application via Submittable here.

 In the Submittable form, you will be required to upload the following information:

• A cover letter including your personal details concisely outlining the project you would like to focus on during the residency period. Please be precise to help us to understand your need.
• An updated writer’s Curriculum Vitae (max. two A4 pages) including publications with ISBNs, year of birth, postal address, Eircode/postcode and contact number.
• THREE Clearly labelled samples of recent work (TWO different prose samples of up to 1,000 words each, plus ONE work-in-progress piece of 1,000 words, preferably the work you intend to develop during the residency). If you are more than 10% over the word count, your pieces will be ineligible. Please collate all three samples into one single file (.doc, .docx or .PDF).

What is Submittable? 

Submittable is an online platform that the Irish Writers Centre uses to collect and review submissions and applications. To submit your application via Submittable, applicants will need to create a Submittable account. It’s free and easy to use but if you have any issues with Submittable, please email projects@irishwriterscentre.ie. Applications will be acknowledged via an automatic email.

Deadline for Applications

Apply by midnight on Wednesday January 8, 2025. 

No late applications will be considered. Applications are to be made through Submittable and will be acknowledged automatically.

Selection Process

Applications will be reviewed by IWC team members in the first round, checking for eligibility. In the second round a selection panel made up independent professional writer(s) will select and shortlist writers with consideration to their eligibility, expression of intent, and the range and quality of writing samples provided.

Please note: Due to the volume of applicants we are not in a position to give individual feedback to applicants, unless they have been interviewed, depending on the scheme. This policy extends across all of our calls in the interests of equity and transparency, and because, as a small team, we don’t have the capacity to give individual responses.

Writers who have previously been awarded this opportunity are ineligible.

Access at Notre Dame Kylemore: where the residency will be taking place

For further information on Kylemore’s Wheel Chair access, please read PDF document for a detailed descriptive route that provides more information on the level of access at the Notre Dame Kylemore, including pathways, bedroom, toilet and lift access.

Access at Kylemore Abbey: the wider grounds where the residency will take place

The Kylemore estate is partially accessible to wheelchair users and those with reduced mobility. The Abbey offers limited access with six of the nine open rooms accessible.

Unfortunately, the neo-Gothic Church is not accessible for wheelchair users. There is a shuttle bus to the garden which is suitable for wheelchair users and most of the paths in the garden are accessible however there are some steep inclines and steps which prevent full access to some areas of the garden. The shop and Café are fully accessible.

For further information and questions regarding access, please email projects@irishwriterscentre.ie.

About the Writer-in-Residence

Dionne Irving Bremyer is originally from Toronto, Ontario. Irving Bremyer writes fiction and nonfiction that investigates and questions personal, cultural, and national hybridity emergent in a postcolonial world. Two essays, “Treading Water” and “Do You Like to Hurt,” were notable essays in Best American Essays 2017 and 2019. She is the author of the novel Quint (7.13 Books). Her short story collection The Islands (Catapult Books) follows the lives of Jamaican women—immigrants or the descendants of immigrants—who have relocated all over the world to escape the ghosts of colonialism. Her edited collection Breastfeeding and Culture: Discourses and Representations (Demeter Press) includes essays that deal with the varied and complicated ways in which cultural attitudes about mothering and female sexuality inform the way people understand, embrace, reject, and talk about breastfeeding. Irving Bremyer been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and has been awarded two Tennessee Williams scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and a scholarship and residency from the Voices of Our Nation Writers Conference. Her collection The Islands was shortlisted for the prestigious Giller prize 2023.

About Notre Dame Kylemore

In 2015, the University of Notre Dame and the Benedictine Community at Kylemore Abbey formed a partnership which would further their shared spiritual, cultural, and educational missions. Today, Notre Dame Kylemore is a Centre for Education and Growth where the Notre Dame family and the wider Irish community engage in meaningful and authentic ways. Together with our local partners, we strive to provide multi-disciplinary programming for leaders, thinkers, and creators with a focus on nourishing the mind, body, and spirit.