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This special episode of the podcast aired on Thursday 1st May 2025. It has been supported by Poetry Ireland. It is produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details and links to the guest stars…
Antrim
Niamh McNally is a Belfast-based poet, facilitator, and events co-ordinator. She completed her MA in Ulster University where she co-created and was a poetry editor for The Paperclip; a student-led literary publication. Niamh facilitates workshops in The Seamus Heaney Homeplace and has been published in: The Tulsa Review, Tír na nÓg, and HOWL: New Irish Writing. Her poetry has featured in two climate crisis films, and she performed at the One Young World Summit opening in 2023. Niamh’s poem ‘If Stone Could Speak’ was showcased by Bushmills for ‘The Causeway Collection’ and her long poem ‘New Impressions’ was published by The John Hewitt Society & ACNI. Recently, Niamh has read her poetry in The UN Buffer Zone (Cyprus) as part of Herstory’s Peace Heroines Project, The NI Executive Office (Brussels), The Embassy of Ireland (The Hague), and in Dublin Castle for the 3rd Shared Island Forum. She has just been commissioned to write for, and perform in, The Guildhall as part of the Field Day Lecture 2024. Niamh wrote and voiced the compilation video for Belfast 2024 and is the Poet-in-Residence for Translink’s new Grand Central Station, Belfast. Her most recent achievement was co-ordinating Look North! The North Belfast Festival 2025.
Follow Niamh on Instagram
Armagh
Therese Kieran lives in Belfast but hails from South Armagh. Her work has been published in anthologies including: Washing Windows? Irish Women Write Poetry, Poetry Jukebox and Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets 2023. She is currently on the MA poetry programme at QUB and is Vice-Chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann.
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Carlow
Derek Coyle’s Reading John Ashbery in Costa Coffee Carlow (2019) was shortlisted for the Shine Strong 2020 award for best first collection. Sipping Martinis under Mount Leinster (2024) is published in a dual language edition in Tranas, Sweden. His poems have appeared in The Irish Times, Irish Pages, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Texas Literary Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Orbis, Skylight 47, Assaracus, The High Window and The Stony Thursday Book. He lectures in Carlow College/St Patrick’s, Ireland.
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Cavan
Kate Ennals has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on-line journals (Crannog, Skylight 47, Honest Ulsterman, Live Encounters, Boyne Berries, Stony Thursday, Crossways, The Ogham Stone, Poetry Ireland Review, plus many more). She has published three collections of poetry. At The Edge (Lapwing) was published in 2015. Threads (Lapwing), was published in April 2018. Elsewhere (Vole Imprint), in November 21. Her fourth, Practically A Wake, is due out from Salmon Poetry).
Her blog can be found at kateennals.com
Clare
Grace Wells is an award-winning eco-poet and environmental writer. Nature, environment and spirit-of-place are the large themes of her writing. Grace has published three books of poetry with Dedalus Press, most recently in 2022, ’The Church of the Love of the World’ which was shortlisted for the Farmgate Café National Poetry Award and the Laurel Prize.
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A passionate poet, singer-songwriter and performer, Amanda Jane Shannon has incorporated the arts into every aspect of her life, focusing on creative community building and personal growth. She is pro- active in working with the Irish language as well as Brazilian Portuguese. She is also a steering group member of The Clare Poetry Collective, whilst working as a singer/songwriter and Librarian, curating events focusing on the Irish language. Recent awards include her ‘artist to artist’ mentorship award with Glór in 2023 and Clare Arts Office’s Embrace Programme in 2024. She has also received funding for her latest single in Irish from the Clare Arts Office that was released September 2024. She is currently recording her ‘Phoenix and Wolfe’ EP, as well as completing her first poetry collection – ‘Vignettes of a Rebellious Toddler’.
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Cork
Lauren O’Donovan is an Irish writer and graduate of UCC. She has won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the Southword Subscriber’s Poetry Prize and, most recently, the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition. She is co-founder of HOWL New Irish Writing and Lime Square Poets, and is a grateful recipient of funding from Cork County Council and the Arts Council. Lauren’s debut chapbook Taxidermy Heart was published by Cork City Libraries in April 2025, and her second chapbook Superposition will be published by Southword Editions in May 2025. Lauren is fortunate to have her work sometimes published in journals and anthologies, most recently in Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Scotland, Banshee, and Southword. She lives in County Cork with her family.
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Derry
Raised and living in the northwest of Ireland, Seamus Mc Dermott is an active member of ‘The Diamond Writers’ and ‘This Writing Thing’. He enjoys writing poems influenced by nature and memories. Seamus’ video-poem ‘Borderland’ was selected for screening at five international film festivals 2021-2023 and was the winner in Best Spoken Word/Poetry, Miracle Makers International Film Festival in 2023. He was also the Frances Browne Literary Competition Winner of ‘Treasure Each Voice Award’, 2024 and the ‘Local Writer Award’, 2023 with poems highly commended 2022 and 2021 as well as being an Impspired Soundwaves Competition Winner, 2024 and a Bangor Literar Journal Forty Words Competition runner-up in 2022 and shortlisted in 2021. In the Allingham Arts Poetry Competition, he was highly commended in 2023 and shortlisted in 2020-2022. His poems were published in Poetry in Motion TranslinkAnthology 2025, Writing from the Heart Impspired Anthology 2025, Corncrake Magazine 2023, Honest Ulsterman 2023, The Madrigal Literary Magazine 2022, Hidden Donegal anthology of Donegal poets 2022, Little Gems Magazine Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter editions (2019 –2023), 11th edition of Crossways Literary Magazine 2021 and The Bangor Literary Journal issues 15 and 18.
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Dublin
Katie Donovan is a poet, originally from Co. Wexford, but a long-time resident of Dalkey, Co. Dublin. She has published six collections with Bloodaxe Books, UK, the most recent of which, “May Swim” appeared in 2024. In 2017 she was the recipient of the O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry. She is a former journalist with “The Irish Times” and has taught Creative Writing in both iadt and NUI Maynooth. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, notably the bestselling “Staying Alive” series. She has given readings of her work all over Ireland, the UK, continental Europe and North America.
Follow Katie via her website
Donegal
Catherine Kay lives in Donegal. Her writing has been performed in the Waterside Theatre, Ten x 9 and Words by the Water. She was long listed for Cúirt New Writing 2022 and highly commended for the Frances Browne Festival. Her writing has been published in the Storms Journal Anthology 4 and Impspired Anthology : Caught Alight due out in 2025.
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Down
Linda McKenna’s second collection, Four Thousand Keys, was published by Doire Press in 2024. Originally from North County Dublin, she has lived in Downpatrick, Co Down for nearly 30 years.
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Fermanagh
Trish Bennett is an award-winning writer and performer from the Leitrim / Fermanagh border. Her writing spans poetry, memoir, and short stories. Her poem ‘Sweet Spot’, representing Co. Fermanagh, featured on the BBC and Radio Ulster’s 40th Anniversary show (Fanfare for the Makers) at the Ulster Hall in 2021, and is published in her debut collection, ‘Stench’ (Arlen House, 2024).
Follow Trish at her website
Galway
Caitríona Lane is a Bilingual Poetry Ireland Introductions Series Poet from 2022. In 2023 she was shortlisted for the Eavan Boland Emerging Poet Award by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. Since then , Caitríona has won several poetry competitions including An Fiach Dubh, Fingal Poetry Festival, Manchester Irish Language Poetry Prize, Ballybunion Arts Festival, Words by Water, Kinsale, Drawn to the Light Press. She has been placed twice in Poems for Patience at Cúirt , Galway, and placed and highly commended by Frances Browne Literature Festival, Donegal, and Féile Raiftéiri, Galway. Limerick Writers Centre awarded her a prize in 2024 and highly commended her poetry As Gaeilge again in 2025. She was shortlisted by Belfasts’s Fleadh Feirste and longlisted for Seán Dunne inaugural award. (Since 2022) her work appears in both languages in many journals including Poetry Ireland Review, ( The Loch Raven Review, USA ), Galway Review, Ragaire, ROPES, The Storms, Channel magazine, The Four Faced Liar, Howl New Irish Writing, New Isles Press, Washing Windows V, Lapwing Publications anthology agus Irish language journals – Comhar, Aneas, Feasta. Her work has been broadcast on RTE Raidio na Gaeltachta, raidio Rí Rá, Raidio na Life, Connemara Community Radio and on the podcasts ; Eat the storms, SEAL LE SEÁN, and BANTRACHT, Northern Ireland. IWC awarded Caitríona a residency in Cill Rialaig in 2024 And in 2022 Ealaín na Gaeltachta awarded her a residency at Interface Inagh, Connemara. She is currently seeking a publisher for her debut collection.
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Kerry
Pamela Muller is a poet and artist. She was born in South Africa in 1958 and has been living in the South West of Ireland since 1978. She is a long term member of both the Kenmare Clan na Farraige writer’s group and the Sneem writer’s group. Her poetry had been published in The Curlew, Boyne Berries, Lothlorian Poetry Journal, The Haibun Journal, Speaking for Scéine, Poets Meet Painters, The Stony Thursday Book, the Writing on the Edge anthology and Sparks Literary Journal. Her debut collection, New Soil, was published by Revival Press in 2024.
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Kildare
Zita McGarry, a native of Longford , educated in the Mercy convent boarding school, Zita went on to study Hotel Management in Switzerland in the 90’s. Now having left the life of a hotelier behind and raised a family with her husband in Sallins Co. Kildare , she has turned fully towards the arts. Zita held her first solo exhibition of paintings just over twenty years ago. Throughout his time, this artist has been writing poems to mark the milestones, and sometimes to simply rest between paintings. In her artwork, as in her poetry and prose, she creates dense, richly textured surfaces manipulating materials (artists gel and modeling pasts) through etching, carving and lively pen and brushstroke. These elements combine with colour washes and muted tones to create a striking balance between abstract expression and control. As with her poetry it is a process of reduction, isolating the essential ingredients of the subject, distilling it down and building the image around it. Zita is currently working on a collection of poetry.
Follow Zita at her website
Kilkenny
Niamh Donnellan is a poet and writer living in Kilkenny. She won the Anthology Short Story Award in 2020. Her work has appeared in Poetry Jukebox, the Honest Ulsterman, Postbox and Trasna. Her debut children’s book, Little Irish Folklore Friends, was published by Gill in 2024.
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Laois
Síle Ní Scolaide, Julie Scully is a poet, storyteller and artist from County Laois that writes both in English and Irish. She has a keen interest in Irish mythology and in sharing her passion in particular for the ancient traditions associated with our Celtic ancestors. Her stories and poems bring together a partially imagined history of the woman and Goddesses in Irish Society. She has performed at festivals and events throughout Ireland bringing her unique style to the delight of her audiences.
Leitrim
Helen Pinoff lives in rural Leitrim, where she finds plenty of inspiration in the landscape and with the buzz of local writers and artists. She writes of the everyday – often with a twist of the surreal. Her poems have been selected for publications including The Cormorant broadsheet, New Irish Writing in The Irish Independent, The Galway Review and Dream Catcher.
Limerick
D’or Seifer is a poet living in Limerick, Ireland. Her work has been published in Abridged, Shearsman, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Storms journal, Howl: New Irish Writing, The Ogham Stone, and in the Romance Options and Washing windows IV anthologies, among others. She has performed guest readings for Over the Edge, Cultivating Voices, and the Eat the Storms podcast, and as part of the Limerick Writers’ Centre April is Poetry Month. D’or founded and runs the online poetry series Lime Square Poets, she also co-hosts the First Wednesday Series in collaboration with the Limerick Writers’ Centre. She co-edits Skylight 47 magazine. D’or’s debut collection, On Being Un/Able to Walk Through Walls (Revival Press) was published earlier this year.
Follow D’or via her website
Longford
An emerging spoken word artist whose poems provide a sharp commentary on contemporary society, Darragh Coady is a Longford based poet. Weaving together rhythmic reels of lucid imagery his live performances command your attention. Using just a few sparse lines he lures you in. Between verses he can move you from laughter to tears and back again, stirring up your emotions and exciting your sensibilities. And he doesn’t shy away from telling it like it is! A poet with a social conscience, his work places a strong emphasis on marginalised communities and the problems of those who inhabit them. His poems have been published in Ireland, UK and USA.
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Louth
Puca is nearly there with their first poetry collection, to be released this year, has made a start on a short story collection and a novella too, and has many poems in publications coming out later this year.
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Mayo
Mari Maxwell writes poetry, fiction, flash and creative non-fiction. Her work features online and in print in Ireland, USA, UK, Australia, Brazil and elsewhere. Among her publications are: Washing Windows Too, III, IV, V with Arlen House; Crannog; The Stony Thursday and many others. She received a bursary from Mayo County Council in March 2025; an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2023, and a Professional Development Award in 2020/2021.
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Meath
Orla Fay is the editor of Drawn to the Light Press, a magazine of contemporary poetry. She is the Poetry Town Laureate of Dunshauglin in County Meath and her first collection of poetry, ‘Word Skin’, was published in December 2023 by Salmon Poetry. She is also the author of the chapbooks ‘Drawn to the Light’, ‘What Became of the Horses’ and ‘Olde Songs for Sarah’. Her poetry has been widely published and it has won and been placed in many competitions.
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Monaghan
Born in Monaghan, Finn Cassidy grew up in the town of Clones on the ‘troubled’ border between Ireland and Northern Ireland during the 1970s and 80s. In 2002, he swapped ‘the rat race’ of corporate Dublin for ‘a snail’s pace’ in the rural French-Alps, where he still lives and writes poetry. His poems have featured in a variety of international poetry journals and anthologies (in print and online). He is currently completing his first full poetry collection, titled: Notions of Starkology-Codology. For all things poetry, you can contact Finn at fcassidy@email.com
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Offaly
Born and raised in Offaly and now living in East Cork, Yvonne Brewer has had poetry published since 2014 .Her first poetry collection “Twigs” was released in 2018. In 2021 she had a poem selected in Poetry in The Park by Cork City Libraries and Cork City Council. She released her second collection of poetry in 2023 “The Woman who Talked to Stones. Poems of Stone and Bone” Her poetry is influenced by nature,fairies, motherhood and the sorrows and wounds of Ireland’s past. Her books are available on Amazon.
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Roscommon
Noelle Lynskey, a native of Strokestown, completed her MA (Creative Writing) in UL in 2022 and was Strokestown’s Poet Laureate in 2021. Widely published in anthologies and journals, online and on radio, her debut collection from Arlen House will be launched on May 2nd at Strokestown International Poetry Festival. Artistic adviser to Shorelines Arts Festival, Noelle facilitates Portumna Pen Pushers.
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Tipperary
Susan Richardson is the author of, Things My Mother Left Behind, from Baxter House Editions, Tiger Lily an Ekphrastic Collaboration with artist Jane Cornwell, and Smatterings of Cerulean, a collection of short poems accompanied by the photographs of Ken Whytock, from Dark Winter Press. Her poetry has appeared in The Storms, Crannog, Door is Ajar, California Quarterly, The Opiate Magazine, Dark Winter Lit and Rust+Moth, among others. She also writes the blog, Stories from the Edge of Blindness, and hosts the podcasts, A Thousand Shades of Green and Story Sessions.
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Tyrone
Michelle Dennehy is the 2024 winner of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. Her work has been published in a variety of Irish and UK journals, including Skylight 47, The Stony Thursday Book, The Cormorant, The Honest Ulsterman, Abridged, and Amphibian. Michelle lives in the beautiful Sperrin mountains in county Tyrone.
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Sligo
Maeve McKenna lives in rural Sligo, Ireland. She is the author of two pamphlets, A Dedication to Drowning, published in February 2022 and Body as a Home for this Darkness, published in September 2023. She is studying for an MA in poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast.
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Waterford
Molly Twomey’s debut collection, Raised Among Vultures, was published in 2022 by The Gallery Press and won the Southword Debut Collection Poetry Award. She was awarded the 2023 Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and an Arts Council Literature Bursary in 2024 to work on her second collection, Chic to Be Sad, forthcoming in July 2025.
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Westmeath
Phil Lynch grew up in Westmeath and his poetry has appeared in a range of literary journals, anthologies, and has been featured on poetry and arts shows on national and local radio. He is a regular performer of his work at poetry and spoken word events and festivals in Ireland and further afield. Phil is a coordinator and co-host of the monthly Words by the Sea open mic event in Dun Laoghaire under the auspices of ArtNetdlr. His latest poetry collection, Moving On (Salmon Poetry), was published in April, 2024. His previous collection, In a Changing Light, also with Salmon Poetry, was published in 2016.
For more about Phil and his poetry collections check out Salmon Poetry
Wexford
Paddy Walsh is a working class Wexford poet. After travelling and experiencing other parts of the world he has now returned to his native roots with his own family, and continues to write about life. His work has been included in Wexford County Council Wexford Stories, International Poetry Readings and he was selected as the poet for the GMIT-Mayo inaugural Poetry Pillar. His debut poetry collection “Cathedral in the Fields” conjures images of relatable life for all, the struggles, delights, sorrow, happiness, wonderment, laughter, indifference, passion, social divisions, and hope. It is available in bookshops throughout Ireland.
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Wicklow
Frances Browner lives in Charlesland, Greystones. Her fiction and memoir have been published, and broadcast on Sunday Miscellany, Living Word, and for the Francis MacManus award. Also highly commended for the Costa Book Award. Poems have appeared in Ogham Stone, Boyne Berries, Bray Arts Journal, Skylight 47, Ulster Voice, East Hampton Star, Montauk Sun, and Live Encounters. Roots & Wings collection and A Bronx Summer, novel, were launched by Revival Press.
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For full details on all events happening as part of Poetry Day Ireland, check out the Poetry Ireland website
Host / Producer Damien B Donnelly
Damien B Donnelly is a 49-year-old Irish, adopted, queer writer & podcast producer who spent 23 years in Paris, Amsterdam, and London working in the fashion industry, returning to Dublin at the end of 2019. He’s the host / producer of Eat the Storms and the EIC of The Storms, the printed journal of poetry, prose & visual art. His debut pamphlet, Eat the Storms, published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21, followed by a Pushcart Prize nominated Stickleback (micro collection) and In the Jitterfritz of Neon, a conversational pamphlet co-written with Eilín de Paor. His first full collection Enough! was also published by Hedgehog in August 2022. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, online and in print. His 2nd full collection, Back from Away, was published in May 2024 with Turas Press.
The Storms journal is available here
Follow Damien is on X and instagram and Bluesky: @eatthestorms,com
You can purchase his pamphlets and collections at his website
Backing music for Eat the Storms is from Purple Planet Royalty Free Music
You can find us on many platforms including Spotify and here is the link…
Storm Shelter 