Readings from poets Mary Noonan (Dedalus Press) and James Finnegan (Doire Press).

Mary Noonan lives in Cork and teaches French literature at UCC. Her first poetry collection, The Fado House, was published in 2012 by Dedalus Press was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for a First Collection (2013) and the Strong/Shine Award (2013). The manuscript won the Listowel Poetry Prize in 2010. A limited edition pamphlet, Father, was published by Bonnefant Press in 2015. Her second collection, Stone Girl (Dedalus Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the Derek Walcott International Poetry Prize in 2020. She was poetry editor of the online edition of the literary journal Southword, 2016-2018, judge of the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize (2017) and poetry mentor for Dedalus Press, summer 2021.

James Finnegan, Dublin born, was the second-prize winner in the 2022 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and was shortlisted in the 2021 Bridport Poetry Prize and in the 2018 Hennessy Literary Awards for Emerging Poetry. A sonnet, “The Weather-Beaten Scarecrow”, was published in The Irish Times in August, 2021. James, who taught in St Eunan’s College for thirty-three years, holds a doctorate of philosophy in living educational theory from the University of Bath, and is now retired and has grown into a deeper commitment to reading and writing poetry since Nov 2014. A second collection of poems, The Weather-Beaten Scarecrow (Doire Press, 2022), was published with Doire Press in September 2022.

Dean Browne​ was raised in Tipperary and lives in Cork. His poems have appeared widely in magazines and journals including Banshee, Bath Magg, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry and The Stinging Fly. His pamphlet Kitchens At Night was selected for the Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition and was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2022.