Announcement and presentation of The Percy French Prizes with judge Declan O'Brien

Readings: Angela France, Aonghas Pádraig Caimbeul, Padraig Rooney.

The Strokestown Colmcille Irish/Scottish Gaelic Poetry Prizes, with Máire Ní Annracháin.

Readings: Joe Woods, Penelope Shuttle

Strokestown International Poetry Prizes, presentation by judges John Deane, Penelope Shuttle and Joseph Woods. Followed by the Strokestown festival reception in the old kitchen.

 Máire Ní Annracháin is Professor 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 has been chairperson of Glór na nGael for the past six years and is also a member of the Irish Placenames Commission and of the board of Sabhal Mor 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 stiúr 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. Ina cathaoirleach ar Ghlór na nGael le sé bliana anuas, agus ball freisin den Choimisiún Logainmneacha agus de bhord na n-iontaobhaithe i Sabhal Mor Ostaig ar an Oileán Scitheanach.

 Paddy Bushe was born in Dublin and now lives in Waterville, Co. Kerry. He writes in both Irish and English, and has published eight collections of poetry, the most recent of which is To Ring in Silence: New and Selected Poems (Dedalus 2008), a bilingual volume. He has also published three books of translations. He has won the Strokestown International Poetry Prize, the Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Prize, Duais an Oireachtais and the Michael Hartnett Award. He is a member of Aosdána.

 Aonghas Pádraig Caimbeul is from the Island of South Uist, though he now lives on the Isle of Skye. He has published several Gaelic novels and three collections of poetry, and has also been given numerous awards as a journalist and actor. He is married with six children and greatly admires the writings of Milan Kundera, Franz Kafka, Italo Calvino and Hallrod Laxness.

 Louise C. Callaghan grew up in County Dublin and studied for a B.A. at University College, Dublin. She had four children and then worked in publishing and as a secondary school teacher. She has published two collections of poetry with Salmon Poetry, The Puzzle-Heart (1999) and Remember the Birds (2005). She has edited an anthology of poetry, Forgotten Light, published by A&A Farmar in 2003. She was awarded an M.Litt in Creative Writing from St. Andrews University, Scotland, in 2006.

 Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was educated in Cork and Oxford and is an Associate Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. She has published six collections of poetry. Her awards include the Patrick Kavanagh Prize. She is a founder editor of the literary review Cyphers, and a member of Aosdána.

 John Wedgwood Clarke is the UK and Ireland poetry editor for Arc Publications and Director of the Beverley Literature Festival in East Yorkshire.  He has a selection of poems forthcoming in the 2010 Oxford Poets Anthology and is currently completing his first collection. He lives in North Yorkshire and lectures part-time on poetry and creative writing at the University of Hull.

 Seán Ó Curraoin was born in Freeport, Co. Galway, and now lives in the Liberties of Galway City. He has spent most of his working life as an official translator with the Civil Service. He writes both prose and poetry, and, of his three poetry collections, the most recent is Cnoc na Cainte (Coiscéim, 2003).

 John Deane. A native of Achill Island, John Deane founded Poetry Ireland and The Poetry Ireland Review in 1979. He has published several collections of poetry and has been shortlisted for both the T.S.Eliot prize and The Irish Times Poetry Now Award. He was elected Secretary-General of the European Academy of Poetry in 1996. His latest poetry collection is The Instruments of Art, Carcanet 2005. In Dogged Loyalty, essays on religious poetry, was published by Columba in 2006; his latest fiction is The Heather Fields and Other Stories, Blackstaff Press 2007. He is a member of Aosdána. In 2007 the French Government made him 'Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres'. In 2008 he was visiting scholar in the Burns Library of Boston College, USA.

 CB Follett lives in California USA, and is the author of six collections of poems, the most recent of which is And Freddie Is My Darling (2009). At the Turning of the Light won the 2001 National Poetry Book Award. She is the editor and publisher of GRRRRR, A Collection of Poems about Bears, publisher and co-editor of RUNES, a Review of Poetry (2001-2008), and owns a poetry printing house, Arctos Press. She has several nominations for Pushcart Prizes, received a Marin Arts Council Grant for Poetry, and has been widely published in various magazines and journals.

 Celia de Fréine was born in Northern Ireland and now lives in Dublin and Connemara. Her poetry has won many awards, including the Patrick Kavanagh Award (1994), Duais Chomórtas Filíochta Dhún Laoghaire (1996), the British Comparative Literature Association Translation Award (1999), Duais Aitheantais Ghradam Litríochta Chló Iar-Chonnachta (1999) Duais Smurfit/Lá (2003), and Gradam Litríochta Chló Iar-Chonnachta (2004). She was awarded Arts Council Bursaries in 1997 and 2000, and Duais an Oireachtais for best play in 2003 and 2004.

 Angela France has been widely published in various poetry journals and small press anthologies. Her second collection, Occupation, will be forthcoming in summer 2009. She lives in Gloucestershire, UK and is studying for an MA in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Gloucestershire, England.

 Stephanie Green lives in Edinburgh, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, (1966), Kent University and received a M.Phil in Creative Writing from Glasgow University in 2004. In 2007 she received a Scottish Arts Council New Writers' Bursary. Her pamphlet Glass Works was shortlisted for the Callum McDonald Award in 2005. Her novel The Triple Spiral was published by Walker Books in 1989 and she has had many scripts broadcast on BBC Schools' Radio. She is currently working on her first collection of poems.

 James Harpur (workshops) has published four collections of poetry with Anvil Press, UK.  His most recent, The Dark Age, won the 2009 Michael Hartnett Award. Other awards include the 1995 British National Poetry Prize and bursaries from Cork Arts, the Arts Council, the Eric Gregory Trust and the Society of Authors. Other books include Boethius: Fortune's Prisoner, a translation of Boethius' poetry. He lives in Co. Cork where he facilitates workshops at the Munster Literary Centre and elsewhere in the county.

 Margaret Hickey (schools' poetry adjudicator) lives in Co. Galway and is a writer, teacher and freelance journalist in Ireland and the UK. She is currently director of the Baffle Poetry group in Loughrea, and has published Irish Days, a collection of oral histories.

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