Thomas McCarthy
The May ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, May 30th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Thomas McCarthy, Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin & Seán Kenny. Sean was the over-all winner of the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition and this reading is part of his prize. This is the final Over The Edge: Open Reading before the summer break.
Seán Kenny’s fiction has appeared in Crannóg, The Irish Times, New Irish Writing in The Irish Independent, Southword and Wordlegs. He won the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition and was shortlisted for a 2013 Hennessy Literary Award.
Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin grew up in the parish of Carna in the Connemara Gaeltacht. She lives and works in Galway city as a social worker and psychotherapist. She has been attending poetry workshops with Kevin Higgins this last two years. Eileen contributed towards a group poetry anthology Wayword Tuesdays in 2012. Her work has also been published by Emerge Literary Journal, The Burning Bush, Aperçus Quarterly, Boyne Berries, The Galway Review and Scissors & Spackle.
Thomas McCarthy was born in Co. Waterford in 1954 and educated at University College, Cork. He has published eight collections of poetry, two novels and a memoir. He has won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, the American-Irish Foundation’s Literary Award, and the O’Shaughnessy Prize for Poetry. He has worked for Cork City Libraries since 1987. He is a member of Aosdána. In a review Pat Cotter has said of him: “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. Described by Eavan Boland as the first poet born into the Republic to write about it critically, McCarthy has done so from the perspective of a family dedicated and loyal to the state's most successful and powerful political party: Fianna Fail. But his poems are not eulogies to the party or apologies for its policies; they are more like an exploration of the party as an object of loyalty and devotion (like a lover objectified) with all the potential such an object has for empowerment and betrayal.”
As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.
Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council & The Arts Council.
