Louis Mulcahy

Louis Mulcahy is a regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions. He has been writing prose for many years and started writing poetry in 2005. His work can be found in SEXTET (Revival, 2010), an anthology of six poets. His poetry is also featured in The Stinging Fly, The Stony Thursday Book, Boyne Berries, and the poetry journal Revival and in three collections of poetry in the Irish language by Corca Dhuibhne writers. His work has also been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and Lyric Radio and his work was shortlisted in 2008 and 2010 in the Listowel Collection Competition. As a potter, he received an Honorary Doctorate from N.U.I. for artistry and contribution to community.

His work can be found in SEXTET, (Revival Press, 2010), an anthology of six poets and in Revival, the poetry journal.

See also:

Bridget Wallace Joe Healy Evelyn Casey John Pinschmidt

Sheila Fitzpatrick-O'Donnell

Edward O'Dwyer

Edward O'Dwyer is a regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions since June 2006, after which he began writing seriously. He holds a first class honours degree in English and Media & Communications (U.L.). His work has appeared in Revival TRIO Series No.1 (Revival Press, 2007) with fellow White House Poets, Noel Harrington and Gerard Sheehy and in various issues of the Revival poetry journal. He edited SEXTET, (Revival Press, 2010) an anthology of six poets, who frequent the White House Poetry Revival sessions. He authors the Limerick sub-section of the Munster Literature Centre website.

See: Bridget Wallace, Louis Mulcahy, Joe Healy, Sheila Fitzpatrick-O'Donnell, Evelyn Casey, John Pinschmidt, Edward O'Dwyer

John Carmody

John Carmody was born into a working class community in Limerick in 1964. As a young man he became involved in Republican politics and spent time in Portlaoise Prison. While there, he started to write poetry, and many of his poems have been influenced by his prison experience. In 1995, he was a runner-up in the Listowel Writers' Week New Writing competition.

Released in 1996 under the Peace Process, John continued to write and published collections of his poetry in 2000 and 2001. In 2007, he won theprestigious Cuisle Limerick International Poetry Festival Prize for Live Performance. His third collection, The Butter Lamp, was published in 2008 with selections from that work subsequently published in a collection entitled Strong Words Softly Spoken. His work has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio's Sunday Miscellany programme. John moved to Dublin for a while, where he trained for two years at the Dublin College of Art and Design. He later returned to his native Limerick, where he now lives.

John's poetry can appear light, quirky and humorous - indeed some of it it is. However, his wry sense of humour often conceals a deeply reflective, philosophical poet of quiet spirituality, as is demonstrated in the lines of his poem The Butter Lamp,

POEM

(1)

(Stanza one of six)

THE BUTTER LAMP

I have made you a butter lamp

To light each night for you

To meditate in silence

To search for something true.

/...

POEM

(2)

(Stanza one of seven)

COUNCIL HOUSE

There's a council house in a corner of heaven

And Dad comes home at ten past seven

And Joe works on his Aerofix

And Mom says, "Finish your Weetabix".

/...

POEM

(3)

(Stanza one of eight)

ANGEL

I saw an Angel Tuesday night

Whose hair was gold and shining bright

And all around there was a light,

My love.

/...

Gerard Sheehy

Gerard Sheehy was born in Limerick. The following selection comes from Revival TRIO Series No. 1 (Revival Press, 2007), a collection shared with poets Noel Harrington and Edward O'Dwyer.

POEM

(1) (Stanza, one of three)

LIMERICK CITY BLUES

As they often do this time of year,

clouds the colour of tarmacadam

sail steadily up the estuary

and unload their cargo of jungle thick rain

all over the city streets/...

/...

POEM

(2) (Part stanza, one of three)

YESTERDAY'S MAN

He came towards me

in a body that belonged in a morgue.

A shroud of sweat

matched his every move

/...

POEM

(3) (Stanza, one of five)

HERNAN CORTEZ OFFERS A PRAYER

Send me gold, Father, gold

and I swear to you this night

I will send you souls, Father, souls.

/...

Tim Cunningham

Tim Cunningham is a published poet and regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions.