Cork Coventry Poetry Exchange 2025

The board of Ó Bhéal go Béal nominated Bernadette Gallagher and Philip Spillane to participate in the 2025 Cork/Coventry Twin Cities Poetry Exchange.

This cultural relationship has been celebrated by Ó Bhéal since 2008, and they are delighted to confirm its continuation into 2025, thanks to the support of Cork and Coventry City Councils.

The poets representing Coventry, Olga Dermott-Bond & Navkiran Kaur Mann, visited Cork in August and they and their poetry were warmly received by the Lord Mayor of Cork. Feral Dennehy,  and the audience at the monthly event hosted by Ó Bhéal go Béal in The Long Valley in Cork and at the Spoken Word event in DeBarra's in Clonakilty.

The events in Coventry are:

Thurs 6th Nov 12:00 to 1pm: Hillz FM interview by Cassandra Floresca with Bernadette Gallagher & Philip Spillane 

Thurs 6th Nov 7:30pm: Fire and Dust will host the poetry reading by Bernadette & Philip at Priory Visitor Centre, Coventry 

Link to Eventbrite (for open mic slot)

Friday 6th Nov 7:30pm Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library 

Poetry Readingby Bernadette & Philip and music by singer songwriter Katherine Abbott 

Open Mic slots available but advice is to come early!

Poetry in Conversation Cork City Library Oct 2025

 

Bernadette Gallagher & Fiona Smith invite readers to participate in 'Poetry in Conversation'

on Thursday 30th Oct from 3 to 4:30pm in Cork City Library on the Grand Parade as they read a selection of their work.

After each poet reads a poem facilitator Jackie Butler will invite the audience to respond.  Audience members will bring their own unique perspective to the conversation.

Bernadette, Fiona and Jackie are excited to bring into being this experimental event and are eager to hear the voice of the listener.

Booking via Eventbrite 

Bernadette Gallagher is author of The Risen Tree, (Revival Press, 2024) her debut poetry collection. Her work has been published in Crannóg, Agenda, The Tablet, The Stinging Fly, The North, Stony Thursday, Southword, The Frogmore Papers, Cork University Press and in anthologies & online journals. She has received awards from the Arts Council and Cork County Council. As part of the Ó Bhéal go Béal, Bernadette has been nominated to participate in the 2025 Cork/Coventry Twin Cities Poetry Exchange.

Fiona Smith is author of A Lemming Year, (Revival Press, 2025) and Travellers of the North (Arc Publications, 2023). Her work has been published in Crannog, Dreich, Hennessy New Irish Writing, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stony Thursday Book, Southword and the anthologies Skein (Templar Poetry, 2014) and Over the Edge – The First Ten Years (Salmon Poetry, 2013). She was highly commended in the Munster Literature Centre’s Fool for Poetry competition in 2022.

Jackie Butler works as a group analyst in private practice in Cork and has many years of experience working in the arts in Ireland.

Celebrating Seamus Heaney at Waterstones Cork

Poetry Reading

Sunday 19th October 2025

14:00 - 16:00 at Waterstones, Cork

Thanks to John Breen for organising this event and for the invitation to participate.

I will be reading the first poem from Seamus Heaney's first collection, Death of a Naturalist

From Waterstones Cork:

To celebrate Irish Book Week and mark the publication of The Poems of Seamus Heaney edited by Bernard O'Donoghue et al (Faber) we are hosting a Sunday afternoon reading by more than twenty local poets. Each poet will read one of their own poems and a poem of their choosing by Heaney. This reading is a rare chance to see so many talented poets, many of whom are award winners reading not just their own work but also the work of one of our greatest poets who was an inspiration to so many of them.

Seamus Heaney was the leading Irish poet of his generation and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. This new Faber collection is the long-awaited, definitive edition of his poetry. It encompasses all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as the small number that appeared after his death: twelve single volumes, from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Human Chain (2010), and those poems published in pamphlets, journals and magazines or with limited circulation. In addition, the book includes a selection of unpublished material chosen by the poet's family.

It is a body of work that, in its entirety, resounds with the 'lyrical beauty and ethical depth' cited by the Nobel committee: poems 'which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.'

Arlen House 1975-2025 Celebration Cork City Library

I am delighted to have helped in supporting Cork City Libraries and Arlen House for the Cork launch of Washing Windows V: Women Revolutionise Irish Poetry, 1975‒2025 celebrating 50 years of Arlen House on Saturday 11th October 2025

with special guest Catherine Rose, Ireland's first feminist publisher...

and readings by many of the contributing poets

Washing Windows V: Women Revolutionise Irish Poetry, 1975‒2025 edited by Alan Hayes and Nuala O'Connor, is the biggest anthology of poetry by Irish women writers ever compiled, with over 300 contemporary women poets, from all over the island and further afield, writing in English and Irish, poems of power, potency and poignancy.

plus a celebration of Irish Women: Image and Achievement (Arlen House, 1985) the first Irish women's studies book, originally launched in Cork City Library in 1985 with special guest, editor Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin