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| This month we’re enjoying the views as more light filters through the trees in Marie Heaney Square. The halls are quieter as hand-in dates loom, but it’s a good month to launch new books by graduates, and welcome brilliant guest speakers including a special day in partnership with the Irish Writers Centre, Words in Other Places. Monthly highlights continue with It Goes as Follies and Reading Seamus Heaney (this month looking at The Cure at Troy), and preparations for annual showcases are underway with ekphrasis workshops and performance of new scripts in the Brian Friel at the end of the month. For full event listings and news, visit the website.
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| We have welcomed back Stephen Sexton, Bebe Ashley, Niamh Twomey, and Emma Devlin (photographed here with our good friends Joseph Lennon and Alan Drew) from their visit to Villanova University, USA. It was 28°C one day and then snowing the next! The group visited the campus observatory and saw Pleiades and the rings of Jupiter and Pleiades. They taught workshops on Self-Portrait Poems, Weird Fiction, and Writing the Natural World, and loved reading their work alongside the many brilliant students at Kelly House. We look forward to welcoming Villanova University’s Writing Through Conflict students to the Seamus Heaney Centre next year! |
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| | | Our staff get a welcome break at Easter and the building will be closed to the public in line with wider campus closures from Fri 3 - Fri 10 April (inclusive). We will be back as usual on Sat 11 Apr. |
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CALL FOR PAPERS - DEADLINE MON 27 APR
DIGGING AT SIXTY: FROM THE ARCHIVE | 11-12 SEP 2026 The conference is run in partnership with the National Library of Ireland, Emory University’s Rose Library and Queen’s University Belfast’s Special Collections. |
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| | | Last week’s Children’s Literature Conference was a huge success with delegates from across Ireland, UK and much further afield joining us to share insights and discuss challenges of creating, studying and teaching literature for young people. This was just the beginning of some important conversations and we have much to build on. |
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| “The genesis for this conference was a lecture by Shirley-Anne McMillan in which she posited that children's literature is rarely taken seriously until news breaks that particular books have been banned from schools and libraries. We are hopeful that in hosting this conference we are playing our part to encourage serious thought about children's literature.” - SHC Outreach And Engagement Officer, Stephen Connolly |
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| Pictured L-R are: Paul Howard; Maire Zepf; Damian Smyth, Head of Literature & Drama, Arts Council of Northern Ireland; Shirley-Anne McMillan, current Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland; Kelly McCaughrain; and Professor Leonia Flynn, from the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s. Paul, Maire, and Kelly are all previous recipients of the Children’s Writing Fellowship. |
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| “It was an amazing privilege to be part of this vibrant event which demonstrated the huge energy we have in Northern Ireland around creating excellent art for children. It was absolutely wonderful to see the Seamus Heaney Centre packed with people who care about children's books, and to celebrate our connections, across many borders, with other writers, artists, publishers and readers.” - Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland, Shirley-Anne McMillan |
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| | For this year’s Ekphrasis Project students have been looking at the Ulster Museum’s Ashes to Fashion exhibition and enjoyed a fascinating after-hours tour by curator Charlotte McReynolds. We look forward to launching a pamphlet of new writing in response to the exhibition in May. |
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| | Next month’s SHC Presents event will be WILD on Thu 14 May. Poetry, prose, script, or song in seven minutes or less. Save the date to be in the audience, to be considered for the lineup please contact Rachel - r.b...@qub.ac.uk (current students will be prioritised) |
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| | The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s is open to the public Tuesday - Sunday 10am - 4pm.
Visit the Weston Gallery to view our permanent exhibition and hear recordings from Heaney’s Eleven Poems or take a moment to read or write in The Nook. |
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| I had it in the night, the image,
but lacked the energy or will
to magic my body through
my own fourth wall and lower
myself, spit-spot, into the page.
But I saw, I just about recall,
a blue rectangle not quite blank
held up against blue sky, blue sea
so you weren’t supposed to tell
the edge, the stitching, or the seams.
And I am folding it now, this pool,
corner to corner, line to line,
so as to carry about with me
its deep blue scrap of lie.
But carrying folded water
isn’t feasible. You know that.
Infinity Pool, by Vona Groarke (from Infinity Pool, Gallery Press, 2025) |
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| | | Copyright © 2026 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.
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