The Cork International Poetry Festival, organised by the Munster Literature Centre runs from 13-17 May 2025.
Beginning with the announcement of the winners of the Farmgate Café National Poetry Award on 13 May, the Festival plays host to an impressive programme and includes a number of Gallery Press authors.
Wednesday May 14th
8.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | John McAuliffe & Thomas McCarthy | Tickets €5.00
John McAuliffe has published seven books with The Gallery Press, most recently National Theatre (2024) and Selected Poems (2021), which was an Observer Book of the Year. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Manchester.
Thomas McCarthy was born in Co. Waterford in 1954 and educated at University College Cork. His prose books, Poetry, Memory and the Party: Journals 1974-2014, and Questioning Ireland are published by The Gallery Press. He is a member of Aosdána.
Wednesday May 14th
10.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | Frank McGuinness & Maurice Riordan | Tickets €5.00
From Buncrana, Donegal, Frank McGuinness‘s newest collection, The River Crana, will be published in May 2025 by The Gallery Press with whom he has published eight volumes of poetry. His plays and versions of European Classical Theatre, published by Faber, have been performed widely and received many awards. O’Brien Press/Bandon published his novels. A member of Aosdána, Frank McGuinness is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing in UCD which conferred on him the Ulysses Medal (2019).
Maurice Riordan was born in Lisgoold, County Cork. His Selected Poems, chosen by Jack Underwood, is published by Faber. He has received the Michael Hartnett Award, a Cholmondeley Award and the PEN Translation Prize. He is former editor of The Poetry Review. Riordan taught at Imperial College and Goldsmiths College and is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University. He lives in London, where he teaches at the Faber Academy.
Thursday May 15th
4.00pm, Cork City Library | Alvy Carragher & Keith Payne | Tickets Free
Alvy Carragher grew up by the River Shannon in Galway and Tipperary. What Remains the Same was published by The Gallery Press in 2024. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Literary Bursary and has an MA in Writing from the University of Galway.
Keith Payne is the author of ten collections of poetry in translation and original poetry, most recently Savage Acres (Dedalus Press, April 2025). He is curator of the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange Ireland/Galicia and shares his time between Ireland and Galicia.
Thursday May 15th
8.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | Ciaran Berry & James Harpur | Tickets €5.00
Ciaran Berry’s newest collection is States, which will be published by The Gallery Press in May, 2025. His earlier books are Liner Notes (2018), The Dead Zoo (2013), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and The Sphere of Birds (2008), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition, a Whiting Award, the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize.
James Harpur’s latest book is The Gospel of Gargoyle (Eblana Press). He has published nine books of poems and won a number of prizes, including the UK National Poetry Competition and the Michael Hartnett Prize. He is a member of Aosdána and lives in West Cork.
Friday May 16th
7.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill moderated by Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh | Tickets €5.00
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest poets in Ireland, also reputed for her dedication and defense of the Irish language. The Gallery Press has published five collections of her poems, with translations into English, Pharoah’s Daughter (translations by thirteen writers, 1990), The Astrakhan Cloak (translations by Paul Muldoon, 1992), The Water Horse (translations by Medbh McGuckian and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, 1999), The Fifty Minute Mermaid (translations by Paul Muldoon, 2007) and Northern Lights (translations by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Peter Fallon, Eamon Grennan, Bernard O’Donoghue and Dennis O’Driscoll, 2018).
Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh is an award-winning Irish-language poet. She has published three collections of poetry, most recently Tonn Teaspaigh agus Dánta Eile (Éabhlóid 2022). A bilingual collection, The Coast Road, was published by The Gallery Press, and includes English translations by thirteen poets. She published translations from the French of Andrée Chedid in 2019. She a lecturer in UCC.
