Final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2019 with Rachael Hegarty, Paul McCarrick, & Bern Butler

The December ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, December 19^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Rachael Hegarty, Paul McCarrick, & Bern Butler. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished which this month will include, among others, poets from the MA in Writing at NUI Galway.  New readers are especially welcome. The Over The Edge end of year celebration will take place afterwards. 

Bern Butler was born and raised in Shantalla in Galway city. She is a writer of prose and poetry, has been short and long-listed in the Fish, Over the Edge and Listowel writing competitions and published in Force 10, The Grey Castle, ROPES and The Galway Review. She has an extensive background in adult education, specifically Prison Education where she co-edited the first ever Irish Anthology of Prison Writing, Another Place. She was the Co-ordinator of the Writers in Prisons Scheme for ten years, wrote, directed and produced prison dramatic productions, liaised with the Cuirt Festival of Literature, and the Arts Council of Ireland to bring writers into prisons, and was lucky enough to have worked on several major drama and publishing projects in Castlerea prison with the writer, Dermot Healy. She facilitated writing workshops in Corrundulla Community Library for several consecutive years and edited a collection of participants’ writings, Burning to Tell. In 2019 she was awarded an MA in Writing from NUIG and is now working toward a first poetry collection.

Paul McCarrick’s poetry has been published in The Blue Nib, Crannóg, Skylight 47, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. He was selected by Martina Evans to take part in the 2019 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. He has also received an Arts Bursary Grant from the Westmeath County Council Arts Office in 2019. He lives in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, where he is completing his first collection.

Rachael Hegarty

Rachael Hegarty is a Dubliner. She is 7^th child of a 7^th child.  She was educated by Holy Faith nuns in Finglas, the U. Mass. Bostonians, the Trinity MPhil in Creative Writing and the PhD poetry magicians at  Queens University Belfast. Her poetry is widely published and broadcast. Her kids say she uses the 3 F- words too much: Finglas, feminism and feckin’ poetry. Her debut collection, Flight Paths Over Finglas won the Shine Strong Award in 2018. Her second collection, May Day 1974, has received critical acclaim for the unique representation of 33 docu-sonnets and 33 ballads for the people who died on the single worst day the Troubles. Her next collection, Dancing on the Dementia Ward explores the adverse, and sometimes bizarrely liberating, effects of dementia on an individual and a family.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland, & The Arts Council.

November Over The Edge: Open Reading - David Green, Riona Mac Eoin, Kevin Doyle PLUS NUIG MA in Writing poets

The November ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, November 21^st, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Kevin Doyle, Riona Mac Eoin, & David Green. There will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished; new readers are always especially welcome. This month’s open-mic will include a showcase for poets currently studying on the MA in Writing at NUI Galway.

David Green lives Galway, Ireland, and is the host and of OFF THE PAGE, a monthly open-mic giving space to writers and poets in Athenry. Originally from Manchester, UK, and of Irish descent, David is a fiction writer currently working on his debut novel. He has had several short stories in genres spanning science-fiction, horror and historical fiction published in various publications online and in print.

Riona Mac Eoin is the co-owner and works at Briarhill Vet Clinic in Galway City. Her hobbies include travelling, reading ,writing and sport, especially cycling. She recently achieved third place in her debut cycling race. Riona is very interested in psychology, specifically the influence our childhood years have on the development of our adult selves. Riona also volunteers with Foróige helping young people navigate their adolescent years. Ríona took a break from work last year and spent 6 months in New York which is where she discovered her love of writing.  She writes fiction and has lately been attending creative writing classes with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Technical Insititute. She has previously read her work at the Over The Edge open-mic. 

Kevin Doyle

Kevin Doyle is a writer and activist. He was born and grew up in Cork. He holds a Masters in Chemistry and worked for many years as an industrial chemist in Ireland and the United States. His short stories been published in journals such as Stinging Fly, the Cork Review, Southwords and the Cúirt Journal. Shortlisted for several prizes, including the Ian St. James Award, the Hennessy Literary Awards and the Seán Ó Faoláin Prize, he won the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award in 2016. He has written extensively about Irish and radical politics and, with Spark Deeley, co-wrote the award-winning children’s picture book, The Worms that Saved the World.He is the author of two political crime thrillers published by Blackstaff Press. To Keep A Bird Singing (2018) and A River of Bodies (2019) are the first and second books in the Solidarity Books trilogy. The series is set in Cork and explores the murky world of Special Branch collusion with a network of abusers inside the Catholic Church. He is currently working on the third and final book in the series. See also www.kevindoyle.ie

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, Poetry Ireland, & The Arts Council.

Over The Edge New Writer of the Year - WINNERS!

The winner in the Fiction category, and 2019 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year, is Molly Harris from St. Louis, Missouri for her story 'The Last Long River Sigh'. Molly  studied creative writing at the 2019 NUI Galway Irish Studies International Summer School.

Molly Harris - 2019 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year

Molly receives €700 in prize money, a hamper of books from Kenny's Bookshop, Galway, and will be a Featured Reader at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in the first half of 2020. Turas Press will read, without prior commitment to publish, a collection of short stories submitted to them by Molly. 

The runner-up in the Fiction category is Helena Farrell from Cork for her story 'The Journey of A Breath'. 

In third place is Eamon McGuinness from Dublin for his story 'Our Names Into The Sea'. 

The winner in the Poetry category is Stephen DeBúrca from Galway for his poem 'Scoping'. Stephen is currently studying creative writing in Florida. 

Stephen De Búrca - 2019 poetry winner

Stephen receives prize money of €300 and Salmon Poetry will now read, without prior commitment to publish, a collection of poems submitted to them by Stephen. Stephen will also read his work at an Over The Edge event during 2020. Stephen's winning poem will appear in the next issue of Skylight 47. 

The runner-up in the poetry section is Kathryn Burke from Dublin, for her poem 'Sherbrooke Street Pantoum'.

In third place is Evan Costigan from Galway for his poem ‘The Trouble with Snow’.

The shortlist from which the winners were chosen is available here.


A huge thank you is due to our competition judge this year Liz McSkeane.

Over The Edge would also like to warmly thank Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, Kenny's Bookshop & Gallery, Ward's Hotel, and Clare Daly MEP. for again sponsoring our competition this year.

October Over The Edge: Open Reading presents Brexit Special PLUS the announcement of the winners of the 2019 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year

The October ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on the politically significant, and potentially calamitous, date of Thursday, October 31^st, 6.30-8.00pm. To mark the occasion Over The Edge presents a non-fiction and poetry Brexit special; however, crucially, poems and stories on any subject under the sun are still totally welcome at the open-mic. And Over The Edge is always specially welcoming to new readers who have never done our open-mic before. The Featured Readers are Martin Hayes, Jerry Fitzpatrick, & Eoin Ó Murchú. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished.  The evening will also see the announcement of the winners in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which received a large number of entries again this year. This year’s competition judge is Liz McSkeane. The shortlist can be read here.

Martin Hayes was born in London and has lived along the Edgware Road area, near Grenfell Tower, all his life. He has worked in the courier industry for over 30 years and is the author of four books of poetry: Letting Loose The Hounds, (Redbeck Press, 2001), When We Were Almost Like Men, (Smokestack, 2015). The Things Our Hands Once Stood For, (Culture Matters, 2018) and Roar! (Smokestack, 2018).  He is currently a little more depressed than usual as his place of work has just moved from a 15 minute stroll up the road from his home to Whitechapel - an hour away – each fucking way! – on the stinking packed £2.90 each way tube!

Jerry Fitzpatrick explaining the reality of the situation

Jerry Fitzpatrick was born in the UK to Irish parents and now lives in County Cavan where he is married to poet, fiction writer, and literary events organiser Kate Ennals. In the 1970s Jerry was National Secretary of the Anti-Nazi League and an initiator of the hugely successful, and iconic, Rock Against Racism, for which he was Carnivals Organiser. He was organiser of the Anti-Nazi League’s Lewisham demo that stopped the nazi National Front marching through the area in August 1977. Beating Time magazine said “Jerry could organise everything from a riot to refreshments for 100,000”. Later, he took Rock Against Racism bands to Belfast during the hunger strikes to Rock the H Blocks. A former trade union official and one time Parliamentary Officer for now Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP, Jerry is close to the thinking of the UK Labour leadership.

Eoin Ó Murchú

Eoin Ó Murchú was the political editor of Raidió na Gaeltachta for nearly 20 years and, more recently, was a regular – and always entertaining – panellist on Tonight With Vincent Browne. Currently a columnist with Tuairisc, Ó Murchú challenges the group think of the Irish Establishment and argues for a nationally independent Left politics. For many years an activist in first the Republican Movement and then the Communist Party, Eoin has been a strong advocate of socialism and of opposition to the neoliberal European Union.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially 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, Poetry Ireland, & The Arts Council.