2010- speakers

Gearoid O’Brien a native of Athlone is the author of over a dozen books. He studied Librarianship in UCD and is a Fellow of the Library Association of Ireland. His poetry has been included in such journals as: Abridged, Prospice and Poetry Ireland Review. He has read at poetry readings in Athlone, Dublin and at the Goldsmith Summer School. This year he won the “Read thru the Recession” poetry competition on the www.bookhub4u.ie website. He is a Senior Executive Librarian with Westmeath County Library service. He is married to writer and theologian, Angela Hanley, and has two adult children.

Dave O’Connell is Group Editor of the Connacht Tribune. He has worked in the Newspaper and media industry for the last 28 years and is the former editor of the Westmeath Independent and a former News Editor of the Daily Star, He has also pursued a successful broadcasting career presenting “Saturday View” and Grassroots on RTE Radio 1.

Mary Hanafin T.D. is the current Minister for Tourism, Culture & Sport. She was born in Thurles and was first elected a TD for Dún Laoghaire in the 1997 General Election. In 2000 she was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, with special responsibility for Children. In 2002, she became Government Chief Whip and in 2004 was appointed minister for Education and Science. She served as Minister for Social and Family Affairs from 2008 before assuming her current portfolio earlier this year.

Oliver Hegarty Oliver, an experienced Clinical Psychologist, works as a Management Development Consultant and Lecturer in Athlone Institute of Technology. He is an experienced facilitator and has performed the role of trainer, consultant chairperson and facilitator for a variety of professional, voluntary and community organisations during the last 20 years. He lives in Athlone, Co. Roscommon

Larry McCluskey is a native of Co. Longford. He was one of the advisors at the establishment of the Goldsmith Summer School and a founding member of “Kavanagh’s Yearly. He has been a member of the boards of The Tyrone Guthrie Centre and The Arts Council and, professionally, CEO of Co. Monaghan VEC. He has taught in Africa, Cootehill, Bailieborough and Bray. His main arts interest is drama – as Artistic Director and actor with Drumlin Players in Monaghan. He is Secretary of the Assn. of Drama Adjudicators (ADA). He has broadcast on “Sunday Miscellany” and has always maintained his contacts with Longford and Goldsmith !

Dr. Sean Moore is Asst. Prof.of Restoration and Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of “Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution: Satire and Sovereignty in Colonial Ireland” and is editing a special of the American journal “Eighteenth-Century Studies” on the topic of “Ireland and Enlightenment.” He has published articles on Jonathan Swift, colonial Ireland, and Irish economic history in several journals.” In 2001-2002, he performed postgraduate research in Ireland as a Fulbright Scholar and is a member of several Irish academic organizations.

Mary Melvin Goeghegan is originally from Dublin but now lives in Longford with her two sons. She is a member of Longford Writers Group and her poetry has been published in Poetry Ireland, Books Ireland, Acorn and various other publications. Her first collection of poetry, The Bright Unknown was published in 2003. In facilitating creative writing courses in schools under the name ‘Free the Butterfly’, she has made a deep contribution to fostering a love of poetry and an ability to write poetry among children and young adults. She has also edited a collection of Longford children’s poetry entitled Ride Along Dear Grandma.

Chris Agee is the author of three books of poems, In the New Hampshire Woods (1992), First Light (2003) and Next to Nothing (2009, as well as the editor of Scar on the Stone: Contemporary Poetry from Bosnia , Unfinished Ireland: Essays on Hubert Butler (2003) and The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland (2008). He reviews regularly for The Irish Times and is the Editor of Irish Pages, a journal of contemporary writing based at The Linen Hall Library, Belfast. He holds dual Irish and American citizenship, and spends part of each year at his house near Dubrovnik, in Croatia

Richard W. Halperin is Irish/US and lives in Paris. Since 2005, close to 100 of his poems have been accepted for publication, mainly in Ireland, and some prizes won. In Summer 2009 he was Featured poet of the Dublin-based magazine The Stinging Fly. His debut poetry collection, Anniversary , Salmon Poetry Limited, will be launched this year in Dublin. A second collection, The Crepuscular Theory of Light, will appear in 2012. He edited the international teacher education booklet Reading and Writing Poetry He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the City University of New York.