UCD Festival

Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet from the Donegal Gaeltacht. Her books include Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017), The Poison Glen (The Gallery Press, 2021) and Ghostgirl (Donegal County Archives, 2023). Her work has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (IRE) and for the Ledbury Hellens Best Second Collection (UK). Her awards include the Irish Arts Council’s Next Generation Artist Award, The Markievicz Award and The Kavanagh Fellowship. Ní Churreáin is the UCD/ Arts Council Writer in Residence for 2025. She is the poetry editor at The Stinging Fly Magazine.

Moya Cannon is an Irish poet, born in Dunfanaghy, Co. Donegal and now living in Dublin. Her Collected Poems was published in 2021 by Carcanet Press, Manchester. She has been a recipient of the Brendan Behan Award and the O’Shaughnessy Award, was 2011 Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at the University of Villanova, and is a member of Aosdana. Selections of her poetry have been published in Spanish, German and Portuguese.

Maeve O’Donnell is an established and up-and-coming uilleann piper and tin whistle player. She originally hails from Co Donegal. Moving to Tyrone at the age of twelve, Maeve began learning Irish Traditional Music. Maeve’s achievements in competition include winning the All-Ireland Uilleann Pipes Fleadh Cheoil in 2015 and securing first place in the Instrumental section of Scór na nÓg in 2016, representing Donaghmore GAA. Her career has taken her across Ireland, Europe, and the United States, where she has performed, toured, and taught workshops extensively. She is one of six exceptional musicians from Northern Ireland to be awarded the NI Young Musicians’ Platform Award, supported by The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and BBC Northern Ireland.