The  S T R O K E S T O W N
i n t e r n a t i o n a l
P O E T R Y  P R I Z E S

Féile Idirnáisiúnta Filíochta Bhéal Áth na mBuillí  

  
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
   
  Competition Judges for 2012      
           
  Category 1: The Strokestown International Poetry Prize    
           
   

   
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
           
    Thomas McCarthy was born and raised at Cappoquin in Co. Waterford, Ireland, and educated at University College, Cork. He has published eight collections of poetry, two novels and a memoir.
He won the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 1977, the American-Ireland Funds Annual Literary Award in 1984, and the O’Shaughnessy Poetry Prize in 1991. He was a member of the International Writing Programme, University of Iowa, in 1978/79 . For thirty years he has worked as a librarian in Cork City public library, although sabbaticals have taken him teaching in America and three years as assistant director of Cork 2005 – the company responsible for managing Cork’s designation as European Capital of Culture. He is a former director of writing workshops at Listowel Writers’ Week. He has edited Poetry Ireland Review and is a member of Aosdána.
"Considered by Dennis O’Driscoll to be, along with Paul Muldoon, the most important Irish poet of his generation, McCarthy is a poet primarily concerned with politics and family. His work’s importance lies in its unremitting and detailed examination of the Republic’s failures and successes as an independent state." - Patrick Cotter, Director of the Munster Literature Centre.

Bibliography

Poetry
The First Convention, Dolmen Press, Dublin, 1978
The Sorrow Garden, Anvil Press, London, 1981
The Non-Aligned Storyteller, Anvil Press, London, 1984
Seven Winters in Paris, Anvil Press, London, 1989
The Lost Province, Anvil Press, London, 1996
Mr Dineen’s Careful Parade – New and Selected Poems, Anvil Press, London, 1999
Merchant Prince, Anvil Press, London, 2005
The Last Geraldine Officer, Anvil Press, London, 2009
Fiction
Without Power, Poolbeg Press, Dublin, 1990
Asya and Christine, Poolbeg Press, Dublin, 1993
Non-fiction
The Garden of Remembrances, New Island Books, Dublin, 1998
 

 Mary O'Malley was born in Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland, educated at University College, Galway, and now lives in Moycullen Gaeltacht. She travels and lectures widely in Britain, Europe and America, has written for both radio and television and is a frequent broadcaster. Her poems have been translated into several languages. She is a member of the Poetry Council for Ireland and was Writer-in-Residence at the National University of Ireland, Galway until August 2009, teaching on the MA course in Writing. She is a recipient of the Hennessey Award and in 2009 was winner of the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry in the USA. She is a member of Aosdána.
  "There is a moment in the final poem of Mary O'Malley's fine new collection, A Perfect V, when a hawk catches a plover in mid-air. The encounter is sudden and lethal and becomes the perfect metaphor for the act of writing:
Language can be like this.
A fine spray of blood
like a lacquer fan, then nothing.
The hawk's attack is certainly an apt metaphor for O'Malley's writing which throughout is vivid, feral, incisive and brutal in its pursuit of the true image." From the review by Nessa O'Mahony, The Irish Times, 22 July 2006.

Bibliography

Poetry
A Consideration of Silk, Salmon Poetry Galway, 1990
Where the Rocks Float, Salmon, Galway, 1993
The Knife in the Wave, Salmon Co.Clare, 1997
Asylum Road, Salmon Publishing, 2001
The Boning Hall (New & Selected), Carcanet Press, Manchester, 2002
A Perfect V, Carcanet Press, Manchester, 2006.
 

    
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
           
   
   
           
  Category 2: The Strokestown-Colmcille Prize for Irish/Scots Gaelic Poetry    
           
    Máire Ní Annracháin
Professor Máire Ní Annracháin is currently at the School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics at University College Dublin. She is a graduate of UCD, but studied for her doctorate under Professor Seán Ó Tuama in UCC, where her thesis was on the poetry of Sorley Maclean. She has a long-standing interest in Irish and Scottish Gaelic literature and much of her work is focused on the application of current streams of international literary theory to those literatures. She is a member of the the Irish Scholarship committee of the RIA and on the board of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye.

An tOllamh Máire Ní Annracháin, Scoil na Gaeilge, an Léinn Cheiltigh, Bhéaloideas Éireann agus na Teangeolaíochta, UCD. Céimí de chuid UCD; dochtúireacht ó UCC faoi stiúir Sheáin Uí Thama, le tráchtas ar fhilíocht Shomhairle MhicGill-Eain. Spéis aici le fada i litríocht Ghaeilge na hÉireann agus na hAlban. Cuid mhaith dá cuid oibre faoi láthair dírithe ar bhealaí a aimsiú le sruthanna den chritic idirnáisiúnta a chóiriú don anailís ar an litríocht sin. Is ball de Choiste Léann na Gaeilge d'Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann í agus ball de bhord stiúrtha Shabhal Mòr Ostaig ar an Oileán Scitheanach.

    
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
         
   
   
           
  Category 3: The Percy French Prize for humorous verse

 

      
    To be adjudicated by the Strokestown Wit Committee      
           
           
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