Book Launch: The Ethics of Cats by Alice Kinsella and A Brief Inhalation by Daragh Fleming

Book Launch

Wednesday 2 July 2025

6.30pm – 8.30pm

Irish Writers Centre

The Ethics of Cats by Alice Kinsella and A Brief Inhalation by Daragh Fleming

Launched by Alvy Carragher and Joe Caslin, with special guest poet Alicia Byrne Keane

Alice Kinsella’s The Ethics of Cats is an incisive, unflinching interrogation of memory, survival, and inheritance, written with the lyricism and wry clarity that defines her work. Navigating the tensions between domesticity and wildness, history and the self, these poems shift fluidly between personal reckoning and collective consciousness, from the intimate disarray of motherhood to the ghosted architectures of Ireland’s institutional past, and the rising tide of the climate crisis. Kinsella’s voice is both tender and unsparing, attuned to the body’s vulnerabilities and the quiet devastations of time. The Ethics of Cats is a fierce and deeply felt collection, as intelligent as it is unrelenting.

Alice Kinsella’s work is glorious, provocative, moving and very beautiful. The Ethics of Cats is an exceptional poetry collection. I loved the intimate worlds and intricate detail inside each poem, the generosity, humour, honesty and truth.

– Salena Godden

The Ethics of Cats shows Kinsella at her sharpest yet. These poems are beautiful and original, combining cats, coming of age and catastrophe, with a clear eye and a sharp intelligence.

– Elaine Feeney

Daragh Fleming’s A Brief Inhalation is a candid exploration of contemporary existence, dissecting themes of identity, dislocation, and introspection with a sharp, unflinching eye. Blurring the line between essay, memoir, and poetic observation, Fleming navigates encounters with the absurd, the intimate, and the existential with a voice that is wry, incisive, and deeply human. From fragmented conversations to immersive cityscapes, from the weight of memory to the fluidity of self-perception, this collection captures the restlessness of a mind attuned to the strange rhythms of modern life.

A Brief Inhalation is Cork-born poet, essayist and activist Daragh Fleming’s warm, meditative and often laugh-out-loud funny treatise on grief, loss, discomfort and coming-of-age. Covering subjects as diverse as the strange and melancholy beauty of inherited clothing, inner city skateboarding, ADHD, childhood snake rearing, the world of social (and anti-social) media, and all too brief interludes with mysterious strangers who leave lasting impressions, Fleming, with trademark wit and honesty weaves his way from his home in Ireland on travels through Barcelona, Prague, London and Lyon observing new and unfamiliar locales through the eyes of an outsider searching for connection. Part creative manifesto, part travelogue, part personal memoir, there are shades of early Richard Linklater in these tales of missed romantic opportunity and youthful misadventure with a roll call of unforgettable characters who leap off the page.

– Lucy Holme

These diary-like episodes show Fleming’s fearlessness, exposing his young heart’s frailties and transgressions with the art and honesty of a poet.

– Paul McVeigh

Alice Kinsella is an Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Artist. The Ethics of Cats is her first full-length poetry collection. She lives in Co. Mayo with her family.

Daragh Fleming is a writer from Cork, Ireland. He has work published in many literary magazines, including Stand, Southword, and Crannóg. He was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize in 2024, and highly commended for both the Patrick Kavanagh Award and the Fool For Poetry Prize in 2023. He won the Duncairn Flash Competition in 2024. This is his second collection of essays.

Alicia Byrne Keane is a poet from Dublin, with work published in The Moth, Banshee, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review and Oxford Poetry, among other journals. Alicia is part of the Irish Writers Centre Evolution Programme 2024–5 and is in receipt of an Irish Arts Council Literature Bursary 2024. Alicia’s debut collection, Pretend Cartoon Strength, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2023.

Access our Building

The Irish Writers Centre is currently housed in 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. This is a Georgian building which unfortunately does not have a lift. There are 5 steps into the entrance level. This event will take place in the Kiely Room which is on the first floor and requires climbing 30 steps in total. Please do inform us of any accessibility requirements you might have before the night so we can make any necessary arrangements.

If you have any questions about the event, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.