The Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Chair of Irish Studies is held in the Spring
semester of each academic year by a distinguished Irish writer. Inaugurated in
2000, it has become one of the most prestigious Irish Studies positions in the
United States.
The first Heimbold Professor was poet and editor Peter Fallon. To help
celebrate the inaugural of the Chair, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney joined Peter
Fallon for a joint reading. Since then, the Heimbold Chair has been held by an
honor roll of Irish writers.
Normally, the Heimbold Professor teaches two undergraduate seminar courses,
one in Creative Writing and one in Irish Literature, allowing Irish Studies
students to have the enriching experience of a close classroom experience with
Ireland's finest voices.
Past Heimbold Chairs
- Peter Fallon
- Nuala NiDhomhnaill
- Eamon Greenan
- Marina Carr
- Vona Groarke
- Conor O'Callaghan
- Michael Coady
- Sebastian Barry
- Justin Quinn
- Claire Keegan
- Gerald Dawe
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Spring 2010 Heimbold Chair
John McAuliffe
John McAuliffe's main interests are in poetry, creative
writing, contemporary literature and Irish Studies, and he is interested
in supervising research in any of these areas.
He published his first collection of poems, A Better Life
(Gallery), in 2002, which received a major bursary from the Irish Arts
Council / An Comhairle Ealaion and was shortlisted for the Forward First
Collection Award. His second collection Next Door was published
in June 2007, and he has also published poems in the TLS, Poetry
Ireland Review, Metre, PN Review, Poetry
London and Poetry Review.
John writes essays and reviews of contemporary poetry for journals
and newspapers in Ireland and the UK, including reviews and short essays
on W.B. Yeats, Paul Muldoon, Derek Mahon, Cesare Pavese, Conor
O'Callaghan, David Harsent, Peter Sirr, Thomas McCarthy, Mark Doty,
contemporary British poetry and Patrick Kavanagh. He has also published
critical essays on post-colonial literatures, Victorian travel writing
and twentieth-century Irish poetry and fiction.
He previously taught at a number of Irish universities and The Open
University, as well as at creative writing workshops at UCD and Birkbeck
College and residential courses including the Aran Islands Festival, the
Cuirt Festival and the Arvon Foundation.
He was programme director of Ireland's biggest poetry festival
Poetry Now at Dun Laoghaire until 2007, and is a contributing
editor to the journal Metre. He is also a member of the
Irish and Scottish Studies Research Group and co-ordinates and
chairs the
Irish Times Poetry Now Award, the only award of its kind which
awards 5000 euros to the best collection of poems published by an Irish
poet each year. |
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