Poetry and Song, Thursday, 10th October at 6pm, Nenagh Tourist Office, Tickets €10
This opening event with Helen Hutchinson, Linda McKenna, Michael Dooley and Bríd Kenny brings together lyricism and music.
Helen Hutchinson spent much of her early life in Cloughjordan and now lives in Nenagh. Her poetry collection From the Dirt Lane Back to the Open Roads, offers an insight into the history and culture of Travellers. Helen is long-standing community activist and proud Traveller woman and has developed her voice to become a writer for her generation.
Linda McKenna’s debut poetry collection, In the Museum of Misremembered Things, was published by Doire Press in 2020. In 2018 she won the Seamus Heaney Award for Poetry and the Red Line Festival Award. She has had poems published in, among others, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Honest Ulsterman & Crannóg, Originally from Dublin, she now lives in Downpatrick, County Down.
Michael Dooley’s poems have appeared in Banshee, the Irish Independent, Poetry Ireland Review & The Stinging Fly. He has had work shortlisted for awards including the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the Dermot Healy International Poetry Prize & The Patrick Kavanagh Award. In 2023, he read at Listowel Writers’ Week and is the Featured Poet in the summer edition of The Stinging Fly.
Bríd Kenny writes deeply personal poetic lyrics and aims to present a meditative reflective state in the listener akin to the way she feels while she is creating. Bríd Kenny & The Noise have played headline shows in Dublin, Limerick and several in Galway. They have opened for Junior Brother, Stephanie Rainey and Ol’ Times.