RELEASED: March 17, 2005

DANVILLE, KY—Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, whose Irish-language poetry blends Irish folklore and mythology with contemporary themes of femininity, sexuality and culture, will read from her work on Thursday, March 31, at 7 p.m. in the boardroom of Centre College's Norton Center for the Arts.

The woman the Irish Literary Supplement calls "the most widely known and acclaimed Gaelic poet of the century" has won numerous international awards for works that have been translated into French, German, Polish, Italian, Norwegian, Estonian, Japanese, and English. In 1991, she received the prestigious American Ireland Fund Literary Award. She is one of the few women Irish poets who write exclusively in Irish and has been a major influence in revitalizing the Irish language in modern poetry. In her work, she skillfully negotiates between the older forms, fables and idioms of Ireland and the commodity culture, psychology and language of the modern world.

Ní Dhomhnaill (pronounced "Nee Ghonnell") has published four collections of poems in Irish, An Dealg Droighin (1981), Féar Suaithinseach (1984) Feis (1991), and Cead Aighnis (1998). All four of her collections in Irish have won the Seán Ó Ríordáin Award. Selected Poems/Rogha Dánta with translations by Michael Hartnett was published in 1986.

Pharaoh's Daughter, a bilingual book of new and selected poems with translations into English by 13 Irish poets, was published in North America by Wake Forest University Press, along with The Astrakhan Cloak, a selection of poems from Feis, with translations by Paul Muldoon. Her work has been anthologized in numerous collections, including The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry, 1967-2000. In 2000, Wake Forest published The Water Horse, a bilingual edition from Cead Aighnis, with translations by Medbh McGuckian and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.

Born in Lancastershire, England, in 1952, Ní Dhomhnaill grew up in the Irish-speaking areas of West Kerry and Tipperary. She studied at University College, Cork, where she has subsequently taught. She has held the Burns Chair of Irish Studies at Boston College and the Humboldt Chair of Irish Studies at Villanova University. She was the contemporary poetry editor of the fourth volume of the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. She lives in Dublin with her husband and four children.

- end -

Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.

Back to News and Events Home Page