Ó Bhéal‘s 1st Hybrid Event Presents
Neil McCarthy and Dean Browne
Neil McCarthy hails from West Cork. His first book of poems Stopgap Grace was published by Salmon in 2018 and subsequently shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award. His poems have appeared in dozens of international journals, in print and online, and have also been translated and published in Romania, Serbia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
McCarthy has been a guest speaker in all sorts of exotic places such as Melbourne, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Ballydehob. He currently lives in Vienna where he teaches English and sits in cafes muttering poems away to himself. His forthcoming collection Little Empires will be published in 2021.
Dean Browne‘s poems have appeared in Banshee, Bath Magg, Poetry Ireland Review, The Poetry Review, POETRY, Southword, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. He won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2021 and was a winner of the Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition 2021.
Dean’s pamphlet Kitchens at Night is forthcoming with Smith|Doorstop, Feb 2022.
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
*NB Our 1st Hybrid event in October will be limited to 30 in-person attendees, in line with HSE guidelines. We anticipate there will be no restriction on numbers from November onwards.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
8.00pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (20 mins each);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
Ó Bhéal‘s 2nd Hybrid Event Presents
a Tribute to Joseph Sweeney
Joseph Sweeney was a much beloved writer and poet who mostly wrote humorous short stories. Joe passed after a short illness in May 2021. He was a regular Ó Bhéal attendee since its outset in 2007 and was well known to local Cork writers in particular. A number of Joe’s poems and excerpts from his short stories will be read by many of these local writers.
Joe lived just outside of Blarney, Cork and taught in Cork’s North Monastery secondary school for many years before becoming a full time writer. He was a member of a number of Cork writers groups. He also lived and taught in France and Spain. He was born in Dublin and graduated from UCD with an honours Master’s Degree in Anglo Irish Literature in 1983, soon after which he became a prize winner at Listowel Writers’ Week for a Humorous Essay, in 1984.
He won the Cross National Universities Short Story Award in 1984 and first prize at Listowel Writers’ Week for a Humorous Essay in 1985. He won First Prize again at Listowel Writers’ Week in 2014 followed by the Bryan MacMahon Short Story Award in 2015. He was shortlisted for the Francis MacManus Award 2017, the Los Gatos/Listowel Writing Festival prize in California, the Bryan MacMahon Short Story Award in 2018 and the Bray Literary Festival Prize in 2019. He has been widely published in magazines, newspapers, and collections in the UK and Ireland, and has had work broadcast multiple times on National Radio.
Tilting at Windmills, published in September 2014, is a multi-award winning collection of humorous stories and essays. It contains four prize-winning pieces, including two First Prizes from Listowel Writers’ Week Competitions and one short-listed by Readers Digest.
“Tilting at Windmills”, said Joe himself, is “like Don Quixote, charging at all kinds of monstrosities and pomposities to see what laughter I can release.”
“Whether stories, sketches, vignettes, dramas, this collection always raises a laugh or a smile. The author is a wonderful practitioner of that unmanageable Irish trait of being both funny and serious at the same time” – Professor Alan Titley
“a view of life that will put a smile on your face” – Alice Taylor
“A marvellous anthology of humorous outings which brings to the world a healing and uplifting humanism.” – Thomas McCarthy
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
*NB Our 2nd Hybrid event in October will be limited to 30 in-person attendees, in line with HSE guidelines. You can request a place by emailing info@obheal.ie (*NB* UPDATE – Spaces for 8th November have now been filled). We anticipate there will be no restriction on numbers from November onwards.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
8.00pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (60 mins);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
the 9th Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Festival of Poetry
Ó Bhéal’s 9th Winter Warmer (and 1st hybrid) festival presents 24+ poets live from seven countries, from Friday 26th – Saturday 28th November. The festival will also feature poetry workshops, music, the shortlist screening and prize-giving for Ó Bhéal’s International Poetry-Film Competition, a Many Tongues of Cork session, round table discussion, a poetry-play and a closed-mic set for new voices – poets who have featured regularly in Ó Bhéal’s online open-mic sessions during 2021.
Ó Bhéal is grateful to its sponsors, The Arts Council, Cork City Council, Foras na Gaeilge, Dunnes Stores, Forum Publications, Colmcille, Arc Publications, Cork City Libraries, Poetry Ireland, Paradiso, the University of Vigo and the UCC School of English and Digital Humanities.
