We Were Always Here: Seán Hewitt, Gail McConnell, Padraig Regan

In partnership with National Library of Ireland.

How can we imagine a future when history seems eager to forget us? We’re delighted at Cúirt to welcome to the stage three of Ireland’s greatest talents, who just happen to be three of the finest queer poets at work today. Join Seán Hewitt, Gail McConnell and Padraig Regan as they read from and discuss their work, their inspirations and the importance of a queer history made visible.

Seán Hewitt’s debut collection, Tongues of Fire (Cape, 2020), won The Laurel Prize, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, is forthcoming in 2022 from Jonathan Cape. In 2020 he was the inaugural Poet in Residence at the Irish Queer Archive at the National Library of Ireland, appointed and commissioned by Cúirt International Festival of Literature.

Padraig Regan is the author of two poetry pamphlets: Delicious (Lifeboat, 2016) and Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real (Emma Press, 2017). In 2015, they were a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Prize in 2020, and the Clarissa Luard Award in 2021. Their first book Some Integrity was published by Carcanet in 2022.

Gail McConnell is from Belfast. She is the author of two poetry pamphlets: Fothermather (Ink Sweat & Tears, 2019) and Fourteen (Green Bottle Press, 2018), and the full collection The Sun is Open (Penned in the Margins, 2021). Fothermather was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award and made into a programme for Radio 4 and the Seriously… podcast. She is Senior Lecturer in English at Queen’s University Belfast.

Supported by Arts Council Northern Ireland National Lottery Fund and the International Literature Showcase Collaboration Fund. The International Literature Showcase is a partnership between the National Centre for Writing and the British Council.