Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin - New Ireland Professor of Poetry
The School of English take particular pride and pleasure in congratulating our colleague Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin on her appointment to the prestigious position of The Ireland Professor of Poetry 2016. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin will be the seventh Ireland Professor of Poetry, taking up the position from its current holder, Paula Meehan, who finishes her term at the end of October, 2016.
The announcement was made by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at a reception at the Provost’s House, Trinity College, Dublin on May 27. The Ireland Chair of Poetry was set up in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Seamus Heaney, to honour his achievement and that of other Irish poets.
Speaking at the announcement, Trinity Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast said: “We are especially delighted that this year’s Ireland Chair of Poetry is Eiléan, an exceptional poet and also one of our own professors, formerly of the School of English and now Fellow Emeritus.”
Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin is widely acclaimed as one of the leading Irish poets of her generation, and her appointment to the Ireland Chair of Poetry has been warmly welcomed. Her work extends from the foundational collection, Acts and Monuments (1966), (which won the Patrick Kavanagh Award), through The Magdalene Sermon (1989), The Girl Who Married a Reindeer (2001), to The Sun-fish (2010), (which won the International Griffin Poetry Prize). Her most recent volume, The Boys of Bluehill (2015), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. A highly respected scholar, teacher and colleague as well as a poet and translator, she is an Emeritus Fellow of Trinity College Dublin where she taught from 1966 until her retirement as Professor of English in 2011. All of us in the School of English take sincere pleasure in congratulating her on this fitting recognition of her work.
http://www.president.ie/en/diary/details/president-announces-the-new-ireland-chair-of-poetry