Ó Bhéal at the Cork Harbour Festival
in association with Foras na Gaeilge presents
A Tribute to Danny Sheehy – Ómós do Domhnall Mac Síthigh
You can listen to nine of Danny’s poems being read here.Join Ó Bhéal for this very special bilingual tribute event to poet Danny Sheehy (Domhnall Mac Síthigh), who tragically lost his life in a boating accident off the coast of Galicia in 2017. A number of regional poets including Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, Eibhlís Carcione, Billy Ramsell, Bríd Ní Mhóráin, Bernadette Nic an tSaoir, Marian Ó Murchú, Julie Field and Paul Casey will read Danny’s poems in the original Irish while translations are projected overhead. The readings will be accompanied by West Kerry musician Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich (Brendan Begley).
Poet Danny Sheehy was born in West Kerry, on the Dingle peninsula. Coiscéim published Fan Inti: Naomhóga ó Chorca Dhuibhne go Cábán tSíle in 2003, and his first collection of poetry, Súil Seilge, with a CD recording in 2008, with music by Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich. His other works include Allagar na gCloch/Stonechat (Púca Press, 2006), and his poetry appears in the following collections published by An Sagart: Mil na Ceardlainne (2008), Criathar Meala (2009), and Mil ina Slaoda (2011).
Sheehy undertook impressive sea journeys around the Irish Coast, in the North Atlantic, on the east coast of Italy and through the Mediterranean, along the islands of Scotland and, more recently, in 2011, he undertook Brendan’s Voyage. He was often to be heard on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta describing his journeys by land and sea, as well as folklore and local knowledge, and reviewing newly-published books. He wrote regularly for Briathar Beo on RTÉ Radio 1 and he won prizes at the Oireachtas for poetry and storytelling. He died tragically on 9 June 2017 while extending a journey which had been completed in 2016 by naomhóg, from Dingle to Santiago de Compostella.
Bhíodh sé le clos go minic ar RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta ag caint ar a chuid eachtraíochta ar muir is ar tír, ar bhéaloideas is ar sheanchas áitiúil agus ag déanamh léirmheastóireachta ar leabhair nuafhoilsithe. Scríobhadh sé agus léadh sé míreanna don Briathar Beo ar Raidió a hAon. Ghnóthaigh sé duaiseanna Oireachtais sna comórtais scéalaíochta, dreas cainte agus sa bhfilíocht. Fuair sé bás go tragóideach ar an 9 Meitheamh 2017 le linn dó a bheith ag leanúint le turas naomhóige a bhí críochnaithe aige i 2016 ar Camino an tSáile ón Daingean go dtí Santiago de Compostella.
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Saolaíodh Sé Breanndán an tá is óige de naíonúr clainne atá báite sa cheol i gCorca Dhuibhne. Tá sleamhnáin, polcaí, amhráin is foinn mhalla ag rith trí’na chuisleana is in chuid fola. Tá cheithre dhlúth dhiosca dá chuid fhéin déanta aige chomh maith le taifeadaí le Boys of the Lough agus Beginish. Tá seimta agus taifeadta aige e Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. Tá seimta aige le Glen Hansard agus John Sheehan is Rosie McKenzie sa Cheóláras is i gCarnegie Hall chomh maith le’na alán áiteana eile.
Seimeann sé chomh maith lena chlann Bréanainn ar ghuitár, Cormac ar Chonsairtín, Conchúbhair ar bhosca ceoil is píob uilinn is Cliodhna veidhlín, viola is rínce sean nós.
Brendan Begley (Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich) was born the youngest of a family of children who were all drowned in the music of Corca Dhuibhne. Slides, polkas, songs and slow tunes run through his pulse and live in his blood. He has made four solo discs as well as recordings of The Boys of the Lough and Beginish. He has played and been recorded with Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and also with Glen Hansard, John Sheehan and Rosie McKenzie in the Cheóláras and Carnegie Hall, as well as at many other venues. He also plays with his musical family members, with Brandon on guitar, Cormac on the concertina, Conor on the accordion & uileann pipes and Clíona on violin, viola and sean nós dancing.
Clodagh Beresford Dunne
“Clodagh Beresford Dunne is a young poet with an Old Soul. By that I mean she has ancient wisdom and thrust but also a modern, searching, brave sensibility.” – Edna O’Brien Anthony Lawrence Kimberly Campanello
You can listen to Kimberly’s reading here.
Clodagh Beresford Dunne received the 2016 Arts Council of Ireland Emerging Writer Bursary and her poem Seven Sugar Cubes was voted Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year at the 2017 Irish Book Awards. Her poems have been published and are upcoming in Irish and international journals including The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly and Poetry (Chicago). Her work has been broadcast on radio in Ireland and in the U.S.A.
Beresford Dunne has also read and been interviewed about her poetry in The National Library of Ireland and in several American universities. A former lawyer and journalist, she lives in Dungarvan Co. Waterford with her husband and four children. She is currently at work on her first manuscript.
Anthony Lawrence was born in Tamworth, New South Wales, in 1957.
He has published sixteen books of poems, the most recent being
101 Poems (Pitt Street Poetry, 2018). His individual poems and books
have won many awards, including the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry,
the Blake Poetry Prize, the New South Wales and Queensland Premiers
Awards for Poetry, the Newcastle Poetry Prize and the Philip Hodgins
Memorial Medal. He is a Senior Lecturer at Griffith University, Queensland,
where he teaches Writing Poetry and Creative Writing.
He lives on Moreton Bay, in Queensland.
‘His poems deliver the world enlarged and energised because his language moves beyond description and towards revelation.
What matters to Lawrence is how one’s inward and organic energies can be transmuted by and into poetic utterance. Nature is often a source for transformation and redemption, a rich ground for vision and metaphors. His best work fuses language so well with vision that his poems take on mystical transport. His flair is in linking language with enchantment, in entering into
and committing to his imagination.’ – Judith Beveridge, Poetry International
Kimberly Campanello‘s poetry books and pamphlets include Consent, Imagines, Strange Country (on the sheela-na-gig stone carvings), and Hymn to Kālī (her version of the Karpūrādi-stotra). In April 2019, zimZalla Avant Objects released MOTHERBABYHOME, a 796-page book of conceptual and visual poetry on the St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland. Also in April 2019, above / ground press published her chapbook running commentary along the bottom of the tapestry. She is Programme Leader for Creative Writing and a member of the Poetry Centre in the School of English at the University of Leeds.
Niall McDevitt
You can listen to Niall’s reading here.
Irish poet Niall McDevitt lives in West London. He is the author of three critically acclaimed collections of poetry, b/w (Waterloo Press, 2010), Porterloo ( International Times, 2013) and Firing Slits: Jerusalem Colportage (New River Press, 2016). His work appears in Wretched Strangers, an anthology of non-UK born writers; Urban Shamanism, poets from north, west, south and east London; Diamond Cutters, poets in Britain, America and Oceania; and the STRIKE! Anthology.
McDevitt is a walking artist who specialises in the historic poets of London, particularly Shakespeare/Blake/Rimbaud/Yeats. In 2013, he read at Yoko Ono’s Meltdown in the Future Exiles: Poetry and Activism event.
In 2016, he was invited to read his work in Iraq at the Babylon Festival.
His book BABYLON (a neoliberal theodicy) And Other Poems is forthcoming from New River Press.
He blogs at poetopography.wordpress.com
Jessica Traynor
You can listen to Jessica’s reading here.
Jessica Traynor’s debut poetry collection Liffey Swim (Dedalus, 2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Strong/Shine Award. In 2016 it was named one of the best poetry debuts of the past five years (Bustle.com). She’s currently under commission by the BBC, and also to write a libretto for Galway 2020 EU Capital of Culture, working again with composer Elaine Agnew. She’s also working with Words Ireland on a multimedia poetry project for ILFD 2019, and editing ‘Correspondences: An anthology to call or an end to direct provision’ with actor Stephen Rea (upcoming, autumn 2019). Her second collection, The Quick, was published in 2018.
Jessica was the recipient of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary in 2014. She was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year in 2013 and won the 2011 Listowel Poetry Prize. She was the 2010 recipient of a Dublin City Council Literature Bursary and in 2009, was chosen for the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series. She teaches creative writing for the Irish Writers Centre, Big Smoke Writing Factory and various festivals around Ireland. She reads her work regularly at literary festivals around Europe and the USA. Her poetry has been translated into Czech, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish and was projected in Edinburgh, Krakow, Prague and Dunedin in 2014-6 as part of the Unesco City of Literature Programme.
Kate Newmann
You can listen to Kate’s reading here. 
Kate Newmann is a graduate of King’s College Cambridge, where she studied English after spending a year in Crete. She was Junior Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast, where she published the Dictionary of Ulster Biography (Institute of Irish Studies, Q.U.B., 1994). She has held residencies with the Down Lisburn Health Trust; with Donegal County Council for the Flight of the Earls commemoration; with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC and, on behalf of the Arts Council, in Ballycastle, Mayogall, Lisburn and in Carrickfergus for the Louis MacNeice Centenary Celebrations.
Among other prizes, Newmann was short-listed for the UK National Poetry Competition. In 2016 she was commissioned by the Pushkin Trust to compile Nearness of Ice, memories of Arctic Convoy. Ask Me Next Saturday (Summer Palace Press, 2018) is her fifth collection of poetry and among her many collaborations with artists in other media, she has produced two CDs: How Well Did You Love? And, with musician and composer Bill Campbell, The Both and The Neither.
Randolph Healy
You can listen to Randolph’s reading here.
Randolph Healy was born in 1956 in Irivine in Scotland. In 1958 his family moved to Ireland where he has lived since. He has published the chapbooks 25 Poems, Rana Rana, Arbor Vitae, Flame, Scales, Daylight Saving Sex, Rattling the Bars, and Hex. His collection Green 532 was published by Salt in 2001. His work has appeared in anthologies such as Etruscan Reader VIII, Other, Anthology of Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry (Oxford), and The Backyards of Heaven.
He runs the small press Wild Honey Press. He is currently retired and is archiving his writings at google.com/view/randolphhealy/home. Two of his poems, Frogs and Primula veris, are on the Leaving Certificate English syllabus.
Ó Bhéal in association with Cork Pride festival presents
Jim Crickard & Alana Daly Mulligan
You can listen to Jim’s reading here.
Jim Crickard writes poetry in a camp, entertaining style which explores various flamboyant scenarios and gives us an honest glimpse into his experience. In 2018, he won the Cuirt Spoken Word Platform and was awarded a slot to perform at Electric Picnic. Jim Crickard has been invited to perform his poetry at events and venues such as The Crossover, The Friary, Connolly’s of Leap, the Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer festival, and Zoolala. He was shortlisted for the 2018 Ó Bhéal International Five Words Competition. His poetry has been published in Automatic Pilot and Contemporary Poetry.
Alana Daly Mulligan is an award-winning spoken-word “artivist” and filmmaker hailing from Waterford, Ireland. Alana’s work targets heartstrings; battling brutal realities with the desire to connect, feel and love as a human being before everything else. She is the co-founder of the open mic Modwords Cork and Europe’s first young writers’ festival The Lit Young Writers Festival.
Daly Mulligan has performed at festivals across the country and features in Kathy D’Arcy’s acclaimed collection Autonomy (Apr. 2018), volume VI of the audio magazine Solstice Sounds (Dec 2018) and The Quarryman Collection (Apr. 2019). Her performance at the Cúirt International Poetry Festival 2019 Spoken Word Stage won her a place to perform at Electric Picnic in September 2019. She has worked alongside Stephen James Smith, Emmet Kirwan, Érin Fornoff, Abby Olivera, Kevin Gilady and Dave Lordan. Her spoken word activism films are nationally acclaimed and have garnered over 80K views across a variety of social media platforms. She was included in a map of notable spoken word artists from the UK and Ireland in October 2018. Alana studies English and History in University College Cork and is an Active Citizenship Scholar under UCC’s Quercus Talented Students’ Programme.
