Bernadette Gallagher is a poet from
Ireland. Her debut poetry collection, The Risen Tree, was published by Revival Press in 2024. She is the recipient of awards including Agility Award from Poetry Ireland and a Tyrone Guthrie Writing Residency Award from Cork County Council.
During 2025 her poems were published in three key anthologies each celebrating 50 years: Washing Windows V by Arlen House, Stony Thursday, Limerick City Arts and Cyphers 100 edited by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.
Her work has been published in Cyphers, Crannóg, Agenda, The Stinging Fly, The North, The Tablet, Stony Thursday, The Frogmore Papers, FLARE, Dreich, Southword 41, New Isles Press Issue 2, Irish Examiner, Boyne Berries, ROPES, Stanzas, in the US peace journal DoveTales, Cork Words 3, Tabula Rasa, In the Cinnamon Corners, Ó Bhéal Five Words, In Dappled Shade, Washing Windows V, and in various online journals including: Poem Alone, HeadStuff.org, Picaroon Poetry, Poethead, The Incubator, Live Encounters, Backstory, Other Terrain, Shot Glass Journal, The Galway Review, Pendemic, The Poetry Shed, Issue #1 of Bealtaine, Issue 4 Drawn to the Light Press, Agenda, One Poem/Porridge, London Grip, PEN, Poetry Matters and Mugwort.
A selection of her work has been recorded by the University College Dublin Poetry Archive the Words Lightly Spoken podcast #115. She has been invited to read her work in Ireland, UK, US, and at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi, India.
An essay by Bernadette on the poet Dorothea Herbert (1767-1829) is published in Irish Women Poets Rediscovered: Readings in Poetry from 18th - 20th Century edited by Maria Johnston and Conor Linnie; Publisher: Cork University Press, 2021.
A poem was highly commended at the 2025 Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition and another titled ‘Inis Bó Finne’, was selected by Máire Dinny Wren. The latter in response to a call out for “Cruthaitheacht Chois Fharraige” hosted by Turas Úr Arts collective as part of Earagail Arts Festival 2025.
As part of the Ó Bhéal go Béal, Bernadette was nominated to participate in the 2025 Cork/Coventry Twin Cities Poetry Exchange and in 2026 she will read in Cologne, Germany as part of a poetry translation project celebrating the twin cities of Cork and Cologne.
