For The Record: (Re)Writing The Past

What does it mean to write hidden or obscured histories? What are the challenges? What are the responsibilities? Using as a springboard the words of Patricia Smith who indicated that ‘the job of the poet is to be a witness’, participants of this poetry workshop will be supported to start writing family stories, social histories and to explore what place folklore, magic and the Otherworld might have in this work.

Ní Churreáin will present Ghostgirl – her pamphlet commission responding to archival records of the Stranorlar Mother & Baby Home, Donegal. The work was reviewed in Poetry Ireland Review as ‘one of the most important poetry pamphlets published in contemporary Ireland, the kind of text you could invoke as evidence for poetry as a constructive, transformative force.’ Workshop activities will include reading of contemporary poetry, creative writing prompts and discussion.

Facilitator biography

Annemarie Ní Churreáin is from Donegal, Ireland. Her poetry books include Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017), The Poison Glen (The Gallery Press, 2021) and Ghostgirl (Donegal Archives, 2023). Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (IRE) and for the Ledbury Hellens Poetry Prize for Best Second Collection (UK). Her recent awards include the The Markievicz Award, The Kavanagh Fellowship and a Hawthornden Residency Award (NYC). As a librettist she co-created the script for Elsewhere – the critically acclaimed debut opera of Straymaker (IRE) in co-production with the Abbey National Theatre of Ireland. Ní Churreáin is the 2025 UCD/Arts Council Writer in Residence and the current poetry editor at The Stinging Fly Magazine. Visit studiotwentyfive.com.

Video reading

Book Information

• The Poison Glen
• Bloodroot
• Order Ghostgirl by emailing nichurr.office@gmail.com