Poetry and the Duty of Care Róisín Leggett Bohan, Jennifer Horgan and Lianne O'Hara in conversation with Martin Dyar

In this event we explore the power of poetry to care for the vulnerable, to extol the living and honour the memory of all that is lost. What is a poet’s relationship to the experience of pain, their responsibility to bear witness, the commitment to do no harm? Poets Róisín Leggett Bohan, Jennifer Horgan and Lianne O’Hara consider poetry’s ability to approach the wound as the place where the light enters us, in conversation with fellow poet Martin Dyar.

Róisín Leggett Bohan is a writer from Cork. Her work features in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, The Manchester Review, Banshee, Magma, Aesthetica, and The Pomegranate London. Several of her poems are featured in the anthology Beginnings Over and Over: Four New Poets from Ireland (Dedalus Press, 2025). In 2025, her poem ‘We Carried May’ was nationally showcased by Poetry Ireland for Poetry Day, and her work was broadcasted on RTÉ Radio 1. Róisín was chosen for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2022, and the Seamus Heaney Summer School and Dedalus Press Mentorship in 2024. She was awarded a literature bursary from The Arts Council of Ireland to support the development of her debut collection. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC and is the co-editor of HOWL New Irish Writing.

Jennifer Horgan is a poet who lives in Cork. She is also a teacher and journalist and writes a weekly column for The Irish Examiner. Much of her journalistic writing relates to education and in 2021 she authored a non-fiction book called ‘O Captain My Captain’: One Teacher’s Hope for Change in the Irish Education System. She is a regular radio contributor. Her creative work has appeared in numerous online and print anthologies including Howl, Crannóg, The Honest Ulsterman, Southword (forthcoming) and Ink Sweat and Tears. Her work focuses on the centrality of care and connection in modern life.

Lianne O’Hara is a poet and playwright. Her play Baby won the 2024 Little Gem Award and recently finished its run at Bewley’s Café Theatre. Her debut Fluff had a sell out run at Dublin Fringe. The Patients All Seemed Happy (2025) ‘a powerful evocation of forgotten voices from Grangegorman asylum’ is published by Writing Ireland | New Dublin Press. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, gorse, Winter Papers, The Rialto, Arc Poetry Magazine, The London Magazine, Abridged, Banshee, and elsewhere. Lianne is a participant of Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Attic programme. In 2024 she received the Mairtín Crawford Award for Poetry and a Theatre Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. She teaches creative writing at University College Dublin.

© Ger Holland

Martin Dyar grew up in Swinford, Co. Mayo. His debut collection of poems Maiden Names (Arlen House) was shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize. His second full length collection, The Meek (Wake Forest) was published this year. A winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, he is also the editor of Vital Signs: Poems of Illness and Healing (Poetry Ireland). He has held creative fellowships at the University of Iowa and the University of Limerick. He teaches in the field of medical humanities in the School of Medicine at TCD.