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BIOGRAPHIES 2016

Anne Enright
Eve Bourke

Eva Bourke is originally from Germany but has lived in Ireland most of her life. She has published six collections of poetry, most recently piano (May 2011, Dedalus Press, Dublin). Together with Bórbala Fárago she edited an anthology of immigrant poets to Ireland, entitled Landing Places (2010, Dedalus Press). She has lectured on poetry and taught creative writing at universities in the United States and Ireland. She teaches in the MfA program at NUI Galway, has received numerous awards and bursaries from the Arts Council and is a member of Aosdána.

 

Anne Enright
Tommy Guihan

Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has published two collections of stories, collected as Yesterday’s Weather, one book of non-fiction, Making Babies, and five novels, including The Gathering, which was the Irish Novel of the Year, and won the Irish Fiction Award and the 2007 Man Booker Prize, and The Forgotten Waltz, which was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her latest book, The Green Road was winner of the Irish Novel of the Year in 2015. She is the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction.

 

Tommy Guihan
Keith Hopper

Tommy Guihan is renowned for his skill on the concert flute which he learned immersed in the music of John McKenna, Josie McDermott, Packie Duignan, Seamus Tansey and Seamus Horan. His father, Tom Guihan, first taught him music on the melodeon at his home in Keadue, Co. Roscommon. Tommy won the Senior All-Ireland flute title in 1978. In the 1980s and 90s, he toured Britain, America and Australia with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. Tommy played for many years with a local group from the North West called Shebeen.

 

Keith Hopper
Brian Leyden

Dr. Keith Hopper teaches Literature and Film Studies for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education. He is the author of Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-modernist (revised edition, 2009); general editor of the twelve-volume Ireland into Film series (2001-2007); and co-editor of Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays (2011) and The Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien (2013). Recent work includes co-editing (with Neil Murphy) a series of four books relating to the late Dermot Healy: The Collected Short Stories and an edited reprint of Healy’s debut novel Fighting with Shadows appeared in 2015; The Collected Plays and a volume of critical essays entitled Writing the Sky: Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy were published this summer (by Dalkey Archive Press). 

 

Brian Leyden
Shane McCorristine

Brian Leyden is a novelist, short story writer, memoirist, playwright, screenwriter, librettist, and editor. His books include Departures, Death & Plenty, The Home Place and Sweet Old World: New & Selected Stories. He has written extensively about his home area for RTÉ's Sunday Miscellany. Other work for radio includes the documentaries No Meadows in Manhattan, Even the Walls Were Sweatin’, The Closing of the Gaiety Cinema in Carrick-on-Shannon and An Irish Station Mass. He co-wrote the feature film, Black Ice and is the recipient of a Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound Vision Award (2014) and an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Literary Bursary in 2014. Most recently he published Irlande '66/69 (French language edition) and the novel Summer of ’63.

 

Mary McPartlan
Shane McCorristine

Shane McCorristine is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge working on a project entitled "Ghost Species". He is an  interdisciplinary historian and geographer with interests in what he calls the 'night side' of modern experience - namely social attitudes toward death, dreams, ghosts, hallucinations, and the 'more than rational'.  Shane’s research argues that, far from being peripheral, these aspects of life were central in making people feel modern. In looking at these topics he draws on a variety of approaches and literatures from cultural history, human geography, environmental humanities, and medical humanities.

 

Conor McPherson
Mary McPartlan

Mary McPartlan is one of the most talented singers to come out of the Irish scene in recent years. Born in Drumkeeran, Co. Leitrim and now living in Galway, she started singing in the early 70s but it wasn't until 2003 that she decided to make music her full time career. She has been working for the last 12 years as producer and director of many music and theatre projects. She developed the concept of the TG4 National Traditional Music Awards, and was co-producer of the award-winning music series FLOSC, also for TG4. As a singer however, Mary, didn't come out of the shadows until January 2004 when she released the critically-acclaimed album The Holland Handkerchief. Her most recent album from Mountain to Mountain was released earlier this year.

 

Sam Moore
Conor McPherson

Conor McPherson was born in Dublin. He attended UCD where he began to write and direct plays for the college Dramsoc. His numerous awards include a Stewart Parker award, a Meyer Whitworth award and a George Devine Award (both for St Nicholas, 1997), an Olivier Award for Best Play, the Evening Standard award and the Critics' Circle Award (all for The Weir, 1999). For his film I Went Down, he won the best screenplay award, best new director award and a jury prize at the San Sebastian film festival. His 2004 play Shining City was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 2006.

 

Néillidh Mulligan
​Annie Proulx
Sam Moore

Sam Moore is an archaeologist with a keen interest in Irish passage tombs specifically and prehistory in general. He has written or contributed to a considerable number of local history articles, books and guides, and has considerable archaeological excavation and survey experience. Sam has been lecturing in archaeology at the Institute of Technology, Sligo since 2007. His main interest lies in the landscape and human interaction with it and the biography or ‘life-history’ of monuments including how mythology and folklore plays a role in the mental landscape.

 

Néillidh Mulligan

Born in Dublin, Neil Mulligan is one of Ireland’s most distinguished uilleann pipers.  He is the fourth generation to carry on this tradition and was first taught by his father Tom Mulligan, the renowned fiddle-player and piper. He is a founding member, patron and former chairman of Na Píobairí Uilleann – The Society of Uilleann Pipers. His second solo album, The Leitrim Thrush, which includes a track of the unique fiddle-playing of his father Tom, was voted the Best Traditional Album and the Best Solo Album of 1997 by the readers of Irish Music Magazine.

 

Annie Proulx
Dominic Stevens
Vincent Woods

Annie Proulx is the author of eight books, including the novel The Shipping News and the story collection Close Range. Her many honours include a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and a PEN/Faulkner award. Her story Brokeback Mountain, which originally appeared in The New Yorker, was made into an Academy Award-winning film. Her book Bird Cloud  is the story of how Annie came across a 640-acre spread of land in Wyoming, bought it and set about designing and building (more accurately, having people build) her ideal house on it. The book is also a history of the land the house stands on. Her most recent novel is Barkskins an epic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests.

 

Dominic Stevens

Dominic Stevens divides his time between building, architecture and teaching. His practice focuses on making buildings and theoretical projects in the Irish countryside. He was awarded the Kevin Kieran Arts Council OPW Bursary for research for 2005-07 and was Roscommon County Council Architect in residence in 2005. His project Fluidcity was included as part of the Irish exhibit in the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2006. His second book RURAL was published September 2007. He is a lecturer in the Dublin School of Architecture DIT. He was shortlisted for the BSI Swiss Architecture award in 2012.

 

Vincent Woods

Vincent Woods’ plays include At the Black Pig’s Dyke (Druid Theatre Company, 1992); Song of the Yellow Bittern (Druid Theatre Company, 1994); and A Cry from Heaven (Abbey Theatre,2005); and for radio, The Leitrim Hotel, The Gospels of Aughamore and Broken Moon. His poetry is collected as The Colour of Language (The Dedalus Press, 1994); and Lives and Miracles (Arlen House, 2006). Awards include The Stewart Parker Award for Drama and The Ted McNulty award for poetry. He is a regular presenter of arts programmes and documentaries on RTÉ Radio 1. He is a member of Aosdána.

 

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