Four recipients of 2025 Birr Writers' Residency announced

Offaly County Council's Arts Office has announced the four writers and poets selected for the Birr Writers Residency 2025.

The residency offers professional writers' accommodation and workspaces for five nights at Brendan House in the centre of Birr.

The council's Arts Office said the residency "provides artists with the ideal setting to immerse themselves in creative practice while connecting meaningfully with the region's people, landscape and culture."

It said this year’s residency will welcome "a diverse group of talented writers whose work spans poetry, fiction, criticism and interdisciplinary practice".

The four writers who have been selected are:

* Caitríona Lane, an award-winning bilingual poet from Dublin now based in Connemara.

* Cristín Leach, a leading Irish art critic, author and broadcaster whose critically acclaimed memoir Negative Space was published in 2022.

* Joaquín Bermejo Ortiz, a Madrid-based Spanish poet and physicist, whose debut poetry collection El Mundo de las flores won the 10th Valparaíso Poetry Prize in 2024.

* Sadhbh Moriarty, a bilingual writer, musician and theatre maker from Kerry now living in Cork.

Offaly County Council's Acting Arts Officer, Aleksandra Rosiak, said: "We're thrilled to welcome this outstanding group of writers to Offaly.

"Their voices are distinct and exciting, and we look forward to seeing how the creative energy of Birr — and Brendan House — will support and shape their work."

For more information on the residency, email: arts@offalycoco.ie