Sean Hewitt is the author of two poetry collections, Tongues of Fire (Jonathan Cape, 2020), which won The Laurel Prize, and Rapture's Road (Jonathan Cape, 2024). His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide (Jonathan Cape, 2022), won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. He teaches at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Born in Dublin in 1959, the novelist, playwright and poet Dermot Bolger is one of Ireland’s best-known writers. His fourteen novels include The Journey Home, A Second Life, Tanglewood, The Lonely Sea and Sky and An Ark of Light. In 2020 he published his first collection of short stories, Secrets Never Told. His debut play, The Lament for Arthur Cleary, received the Samuel Beckett Award. His numerous other plays include The Ballymun Trilogy, charting forty years of life in a Dublin working-class suburb; and most recently, Last Orders at the Dockside and an adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, both staged by the Abbey Theatre. His ninth poetry collection, The Venice Suite: A Voyage Through Loss, appeared in 2012. He devised the best-selling collaborative novels Finbar’s Hotel and Ladies Night at Finbar’s Hotel, and edited numerous anthologies, including The Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction.

A former Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Bolger writes for Ireland’s leading newspapers, and in 2012 was named Commentator of the Year at the NNI Journalism Awards. In 2021 he received The Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. His tenth poetry collection, Other People's Lives, was published by New Island in 2022. His new novel Hide Away was published by New Island Books in September 2024.

John MacKenna is the author of twenty-three books; a dozen stage plays and a number of radio plays. He is a winner of The Irish Times; Hennessy and C Day Lewis awards for literature and a WorldPlay Award and a Jacobs award for his radio plays and documentaries. He teaches creative writing at Maynooth University and The Hedge School on the Moone. His most recent publications are Absent Friend, an account of his thirty-year friendship with Leonard Cohen, and Father, Son and Brother Ghost, a memoir of his relationships with his brother and father. His plays include At War With Mercy, currently touring with Mend & Makedo Theatre Co. He is currently working on a novel set in Castledermot in the winters of 1963 and 2010.

Niamh Mulvey is a writer from Kilkenny. Her first book, a short story collection called Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth was published in 2022 and was shortlisted for the John McGahern award. Rachel Cusk said of it: ‘her writing has the unassailable sanity peculiar to an authentic literary gift, and her themes of female being and becoming take on a new vigour and a new seriousness in the light of it.”

Her first novel, The Amendments was published in April this year. The Observer called it “a questing first novel of significant prowess.”

Diarmaid Ferriter is Full Professor and Chair of Modern Irish History at UCD and author of numerous books, including The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2004), Judging Dev (2008), Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland (2009), Ambiguous Republic: Ireland in the 1970s (2012), The Border: The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics (2019), On The Edge: Ireland’s Offshore Islands (2018) and Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War (2021). His latest book is The Revelation of Ireland 1995-2020, published in September 2024. He is a regular television and radio broadcaster and a weekly columnist with the Irish Times. In 2019 he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Catherine Corless is a wonderful, fearless and proud fighter. Born into a farming family on the outskirts of Tuam, Co Galway in 1954, she says she was 'always a curious child who pestered my poor mother, looking for answers as to why, when, where, especially as regards her own family, and how come we didn't know anything about them.'

That need to know has been the driving force in her life, providing her with the energy to say and do the things that others might shy away from. The story of her mother's birth led Catherine on a ten-year exploration of what she describes as 'our uncaring egotistical Church State and Religious' institutions. That work has made her one of the preeminent social historians of our time. When Catherine says that she has done her best we know that to be true - without her work, so many secrets would remain, so may lives and deaths would still be hidden and so many stories would continue untold. Thanks to Catherine's work the recognition of those lives came, apologies were made, and wrongs were put right.

Mike McCormack's work includes Getting it in the Head (1995), Crowe’s Requiem (1998), Notes from a Coma (2005), which was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award, and Forensic Songs (2012). In 1996 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and in 2007 he was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. Solar Bones (Tramp Press, 2016), won the Goldsmiths Prize, the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award for Best Novel and Best Book, and the Dublin International Literary Award (previously known as the IMPAC). He was nominated for a slew of other awards, including the Booker Prize. His new novel, This Plague of Souls, is out now.

Catherine Gander is an academic, critic, and poet. Her most recent publications are Matches (Verve Poetry Press, 2024), and The Edinburgh Companion to Don DeLillo and the Arts (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). She is Associate Professor in the English Department of Maynooth University.

Maggie Armstrong’s work has been published in the Dublin Review, Stinging Fly, Banshee and elsewhere. She has worked as a critic and reporter for various newspapers. In 2023 her story Dinner and a Show was longlisted for an Irish Book Award. She grew up in Dublin, where she still lives. Old Romantics is her debut.

Victoria Kennefick's debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. A UCD/Arts Council of Ireland Writer-in-Residence 2023 and Poet-in-Residence at the Yeats Society Sligo 2022-2023. Victoria is now Cork County Council Writer-in-Residence 2024. Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a PBS Choice for Spring 2024 and BBC Poetry Extra Book of the Month for March.

Aingeala Flannery is a writer, journalist, and broadcaster. In 2019, her short story Visiting Hours won the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize. She is a former Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair winner and has twice been a finalist in the RTÉ Short Story Competition. Her personal essays have been published by IMAGE magazine and by Paper Visual Art (PVA), and broadcast on RTÉ Sunday Miscellany. Aingeala was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2020 and 2021. Her critically acclaimed debut The Amusements was published by Penguin Sandycove in 2022. It won both the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week 2023 and the John McGahern Prize in association with the University of Liverpool. Aingeala is deputy publisher of The Dublin Review and the producer/presenter of The Dublin Review Podcast. She holds an MA in Journalism from Dublin City University and an MFA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin. She is the 2024 Arts Council Writer in Residence at Dublin City University.

Louis de Paor has been involved with the contemporary renaissance of poetry in Irish since 1980 when he was first published in the poetry journal Innti which he subsequently edited for a time.

His most recent works are Cé a Mharaigh Emma Mhic Mhathúna (2024), Obair Bhaile (LeabhairComhar, 2021) and Grá fiar/Crooked love (Bloodaxe 2022) which includes a recording of his collaboration with Dana Lyn, One day/Lá dá raibh, a bilingual performance using poetry and music to present a day in the life of an imagined village in the West of Ireland. The recording was broadcast by Lyricfm and Raidió na Gaeltachta in 2021 and awarded a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals Radio Awards in 2022.

Anna Nolan works at COCO Content, one of Ireland’s leading television production companies. She is also Chair of the National LGBT Federation.

Anna has worked for the BBC and Channel 4 in London, along with RTE and Virgin Media in Ireland. She has broadcast for RTE Radio 1 and has contributed to most national radio stations. She has written articles for The Guardian, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and The Herald.

She has produced television shows such as Room To Improve, Dermot Bannon’s Super Spaces, Don’t Tell the Bride, directed documentaries such as Perfect Heart and is heavily involved in COCO Content’s development slate. She has recently finished working on First Dates Ireland.

Sinéad Gleeson’s essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Michel Déon Prize, and has been translated into several languages. She is the editor of four anthologies including The Art of the Glimpse and the award-winning The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, and The Glass Shore: Short Stories. Sinéad has engaged in multi-disciplinary collaborations with artists and musicians, including commissions from The Wellcome Collection, the RHA Gallery, BBC, Rua Red Gallery and Frieze. She is co-editor with Kim Gordon of This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music. Her debut novel, Hagstone, was published in April 2024 by 4th Estate.

Colm McDermott was born in 1988 and grew up in Clane, Co. Kildare. In 2010 he completed a degree in Pharmacy in Trinity College Dublin and worked for a time in the pharmaceutical sector. In 2014, his short story Absence was shortlisted for the Davy Byrne's Short Story Award. His work has been published in Southword, Writing4All, The Galway Review, Anomaly, Gorse, and Cork County Council Press. In 2024 he was granted an Agility Award by the Arts Council.

Jackie Lynam is a librarian and writer from Dublin. Her poems have been published in several journals and anthologies, and she has been shortlisted for the Anthony Cronin International Short Poem Award and Write by the Sea Writing Competition. Her writing has also featured in the Irish Independent and on RTÉ Radio 1’s Sunday Miscellany programme. Her debut chapbook Traces: Poems and Essays was published in 2023, and was longlisted for the 2024 Carousel Aware Prize for Independent Authors.

Belinda McKeon is the author of the novels Solace and Tender, and editor of the anthology A Kind of Compass: Stories on Distance. She has received the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Irish Book of the Year Award, and has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize and the Encore Award.

Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in journals including The Paris Review, Granta, A Public Space, and The Stinging Fly, and she worked for many years as an arts journalist with The Irish Times.

She is also a playwright, currently working on a project with Fishamble Theatre Company, supported by the Arts Council's Markievicz Award. She comes to Maynooth from Rutgers University in the United States, where she has taught fiction since 2014. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme. Belinda is Associate Professor in Creative Writing in Maynooth University.

Rugadh agus tógadh mé le Gaeilge, le ceol, agus amhránaíocht ar an sean-nós in oirthear na Gaillimhe i sráidbhaile bheag ar a tugtar Áth Eascra. Ba fonnadóir aitheanta ar an sean-nós m’athair (Sean Mac Donncha) agus gan dabht bhí mo chúlra mar chabhair dom nuair a thosaigh mé ag foghlaim a chuid amhráin.

Le bheith fírinneach faoin scéal, nílim ag amhránaíocht ar an sean-nós ach le cúpla bliain anuas ach tá uaireanta fada caite agam ag foghlaim na ceirde agus is ceird í nach féidir a fhoghlaim thar oíche. An méid sin ráite, bhí mé ag foghlaim agus ag feabhsú de réir a chéile agus i mbliana ag Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann i Loch Garman fuair mé an chéad áit i gcomórtas an tsean nóis. Bhí ríméad orm m’ainm a chloisteáil á ghlaoch amach mar bhuaiteoir – lá ar leith dom nach ndéanfaidh mé dearmad air.

I was born and raised on a ‘diet’ of the Irish language, traditional music and sean-nós singing in a small village in east county Galway called Ahascragh. My late father Sean Mac Donncha was a well-known sean-nós singer in traditional music circles and without doubt his influence was a help when I started learning his songs.

To be truthful, I only started learning the art of sean-nós singing a few years ago and as an art form it is not ‘mastered’ overnight. Nevertheless I was improving, and gaining more confidence gradually and this year at the All Ireland Fleadh Cheoil in Wexford I won the sean-nós singing competition. It was a great feeling to hear my name being announced as the winner – a special day that will live long in my memory.

Scríobhann John Downing faoin bpolaitíocht don Irish Independent agus bíonn sé go rialta ag craoladh mar rannpháirtí ar Raidió na Gaeltachta agus ar staisiúin raidió eile. Thar na blianta d’oibrigh sé don Irish Daily Star, don Irish Examiner, don Irish Press, agus rinne sé tuairisciú ar chúrsaí Eorpacha ón mBruiséil don ghrúpa Independent News and Media ar feadh na mblianta 1989-1999. D’fhéach sé freisin ar an bpolaitíocht ón taobh eile den chlaí agus é ag feidhmniú mar leas-rúnaí preasa an rialtais ó 2007 go 2011, ag obair don Chomhaontas Glas. Scríobh sé “Most Skilful, Most Devious, Most Cunning – a political biography of Bertie Ahern” agus “Enda Kenny The Unlikely Taoiseach”.

John Downing writes about politics for the Irish Independent and is a regular contributor to Raidió na Gaeltachta and other broadcast outlets. Over the years he has worked for the Irish Daily Star, the Irish Examiner, the Irish Press, and reported European affairs from Brussels for the Independent News and Media group for the years 1989-1999. He has also looked at politics from the other side of the equation serving as deputy government press secretary from 2007 to 2011, assigned to the Green Party. He has written Most Skilful, Most Devious, Most Cunning: A Political Biography of Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny:The Unlikely Taoiseach.

Abie Philbin Bowman is the creator and co host of Irish Imperial Lives, an RTÉ podcast exploring lesser-known figures from Irish history. By tracing their encounters with the British Empire, it aims to build a richer and more complex picture of Ireland’s international impact through the centuries.

Abie is also the writer and performer of several comedy shows, including Jesus: The Guantanamo Years, Eco-Friendly Jihad and Don’t Kiss Me! I’m Irish… We’re Probably Related. He has sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe and toured from the USA to Pakistan. He has written for Callan’s Kicks and Irish Pictorial Weekly.

In 2017, he took a 3 year break from stand up to focus on being a good dad. He scheduled his return to comedy for March 2020… You’ll never guess what happened!

Olivia Fitzsimons is from Northern Ireland now living in County Wicklow with her husband, director, Brian Durnin, and two children. Her debut novel, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop (2022), was shortlisted for the Kate O'Brien and Butler Literary Awards, and named as one of the Irish Examiner Books of the Year for 2022. She is a contributing editor at The Stinging Fly and commissions the This So-Called Writing Life essay series. Her writing has been awarded Literature Bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as residencies from Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris and The Dean Art Studios. She has given workshops and masterclasses at universities and festivals across Ireland and her fiction and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Banshee, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She is working on her second novel and a short story collection.

Páraic Kerrigan is an author, researcher and Assistant Professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin. He has published widely as an academic and critic. His first book LGBTQ Visibility, Media and Sexuality in Ireland was published by Routledge in 2021. He has previously been a John and Pat Hume and Irish Research Council scholar. He is the author of the Irish Times bestselling book Reeling in the Queers: Tales of Ireland’s LGBTQ Past.

Tá cáil ar Anna Heussaff as a cuid úrscéalta spreagúla do léitheoirí fásta agus óga araon. Ainmníodh Sa Pholl Báite (CIC 2023), a ceathrú mistéir bleachtaireachta, ar ghearrliosta Leabhar Ficsin Ghaeilge na Bliana 2023. Tá dhá úrscéal eachtraíochta léi, Hóng agus Sárú, molta don Teastas Sóisearach. Is iarléiritheoir raidió agus teilifíse í agus craolann sí ar Raidió na Gaeltachta ar chúrsaí reatha, liteartha, aeráide agus taistil. Tá cónaí uirthi i mBaile Átha Cliath, mar ar tógadh le Gaeilge í.

Anna Heussaff is a novelist in Irish for adults and young readers. Her fourth crime novel, Sa Pholl Báite (CIC 2023) was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Best Irish Language Fiction Book of the Year. Two of her novels for young teens, Hóng and Sárú, are recommended for the Junior Certificate. She’s a former radio and television producer and broadcasts regularly on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta on current affairs, literature and the climate crisis. She lives in Dublin where she grew up in an Irish speaking family.

Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday in April 2024.

The poet Julie O’Callaghan was born in Chicago and arrived in Ireland to study at Trinity College in 1974. She went on to work in Trinity College Library, and later met and married the poet Dennis O’Driscoll. She has been awarded bursaries by the Arts Council of Ireland and her work has been published in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, Poetry Ireland Review, and The New Statesman. Julie has published eight books of poetry and received The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award in 2001, for poems which are described as seeming ‘effortless and are immediately accessible and achieve great emotional weight by the lightest of means.' In 2020 her book Magnum Mysterium was published. Julie is a member of Aosdana.

Claire Kilroy is the author of five novels: All Summer (Faber, 2003), Tenderwire (Faber, 2006), All Names Have Been Changed (Faber, 2009), and The Devil I Know (Faber, 2012).

In 2023, after an eleven year silence, her fifth novel, Soldier Sailor, about the early years of motherhood, was published to universal acclaim. The Times selected it as the Times Novel of The Year, and it was named a Best Book of 2023 by The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Economist, The Irish Examiner, The Journal, The Irish Independent and The Independent. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction, the Sky Arts Literature Award and the Irish Novel of the Year. She studied at Trinity College and lives in Dublin.

Fiona Neary grew up in a family that started fostering in the early 1980’s. She cofounded the Rape Crisis Centre in Castlebar in 1993, and later acted as National Coordinator and Executive Director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland. She is currently co-director of the Linenhall Arts Centre in Castlebar. Parcels in the Post is her first book.

Filled with pathos and humour, Parcels in the Post is a memoir of a loving household and a snapshot of the fostering system in Ireland, from someone who was at the heart of it from the moment when Fiona’s huge-hearted mum decided to take in foster children on their family farm. Over the next decade, a procession of faces passed through the family home. Every child had their own story, and each story claimed a little piece of Fiona’s heart. All these children had to pass through a chaotic system: where a judge’s decision can alter a child’s life, for better or worse; where emergency placements can break up siblings and foster families are often left in the dark. Her memoir has been described as ‘Warm, life-affirming … an inspirational and memorable read.’

Author of the No 1 Irish Bestseller, This is My Sea, Miriam Mulcahy is a freelance journalist who contributes to The Irish Times. Writer and editor, Miriam lives in Kildare. Her first book was nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards and was one of The Irish Times books of 2023.

Is múinteoir bunscoile é Seán de Paor arbh as baile Chill Dara ó dhúchas dó, a bhí ina Phríomhoide ar Ghaelscoil Chill Dara ó 1995-2019. Oibríonn sé faoi láthair do Ghlór na nGael, is ball de Ghlór an Churraigh é agus tá sé ina Uachtarán ar Ghalfchumann Chill Dara.

Seán de Paor is a primary teacher from Kildare town who was Principal of Gaelscoil Chill Dara from 1995 2019. He presently works for Glór na nGael, is a member of Glór an Churraigh and President of Cill Dara Golf Club.