17th International Conference on the Short Story in English
Plenary Session Saturday
The Lonely Voice? An Gearrscéal Gaeilge sa 21ú aois. The Irish Short Story in the 21st Century
Saturday, June 21, 2025 - 1:30 - 3:00 pm
The chair of the plenary is Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and the participants are Cathal Póirtéir, Réaltán Ní Leannáin and Micheál Ó Conghaile.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne was born in Dublin Author of over thirty books -novels, short
stories, memoir and drama her work includes The Dancers Dancing, The
Shelter of Neighbours, Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow and Hurlamaboc. Her most recent books
are Twelve Thousand Days: A Memoir (shortlisted for the Michel
Déon Award 2020) and Little Red and Other Stories (Blackstaff
2020), Selected Stories (Blackstaff 2023), Milseog an tSamhraidh (Clo
Iar Chonnacht 2023), and Look! It’s a Woman Writer! (Arlen House, 2021).
She has been the recipient of many literary awards, including the Irish Pen
Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature, the Butler Award for
her novel The Dancers Dancing, a Hennessy Hall of Fame Award, many
Oireachtas Awards for her writing in Irish, and the Stuart Parker Award for
Drama. Her novel, The Dancers Dancing, was shortlisted for the Orange
Prize in 2000. Her books for young people have received the Bisto Book of the
Year award, and other awards. In addition to her fiction and drama, she has
written many scholarly articles on folklore and literary topics, and is a
regular book reviewer for The Irish Times. In autumn 2020 she held the Burns Scholarship
at Boston College. She is a member of Aosdána, and President of the Folklore of
Ireland Society.
Cathal Póirtéir is a writer and broadcaster who works in Irish and English. For over thirty years he worked as a producer and presenter on RTÉ radio, regularly making programmes that focused on Irish-language literature, folklore and history. He also facilitated many Irish-language writers in commissioning short stories, poetry and plays for the radio, and wasinvolved in many programmes which dealt with literature in Irish. He edited several books in Irish and English including an anthology of short stories in Irish. Cathal holds an MA in Irish Folklore from UCD and has lectured widely at home and abroad. His collection, Tonnchrit Inntine, was nominated for an Irish Times Literary Award and his stageplay, Púcaí Dallóg, won an Oireachtas literary award. He has written original radio drama and adapted two novels and a series of Irish folktales for radio. He is Irish-language consultant to Books Ireland, Eagarthóir Gaeilge at writing.ie and an occasional contributor to Treibh in The Irish Times.
Réaltán Ní Leannáin is originally from Belfast and has been living in Dublin for many years now. She has two short story collections of her own, Dílis (2015) and Inní (2021). She is due to publish a third collection shortly. Her work has been nominated for the An Post Irish Language Book of the Year award on three occasions to date. She is also the main editor of Bláth na dTulach (2021), an award-winning anthology featuring 26 contemporary short story writers in Irish. The accompanying podcast series to the anthology, which she presents, is well-known and has a large listenership.
Micheál Ó Conghaile was born in 1962 in Conemara, Co. Galway. He established the publishing company Cló Iar-Chonnacht (CIC) in 1985. A prolific and talented writer, he has published poetry, short stories, a novel, plays, and novellas, and has also done some translation work as well as editing several books. In 1997 the Irish American Cultural Institute awarded him The Butler Literary Award. His short story Athair, (Father), was awarded the Hennessy Literary Award in 1997 and he was also awarded the Hennessy Irish Writer of the Year Award. He has published four collections of short stories. Seventeen of his short stories translated into English are in the collection, The Colours of Man. He is a member of Aos Dána.
International Conference on the Short Story in English 2025
Conference Secretariat
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