I started writing poetry in 2017 while living in Waterford. Though I moved there to work for GIY, establishing my poetry writing practice was one of my highlights of that time.

Thanks to meeting a craniosacral therapist called Tina, she recommended the book by poet and writing teacher Pat Schneider called Writing Alone and Writing With Others. She also told me about monthly poetry evenings called Poetry Plus that were taking place in Carrick-on-Suir and ran by the brilliant Margaret O’ Brien - who trained with Pat Schneider. Reading my poems aloud was exhilarating and spurred me on to write more.

Since then, I have attended two of Margaret’s Writing Changes Lives: Summer Writing Workshops in July 2018 and 2019 at Manyweathers Studio in beautiful Sliabh na mBan, county Tipperary. Also, for a period of about six months I was so fortunate to have had Pat Schneider as my mentor, corresponding through letters between county Clare and Massachusetts. Working with Pat was so encouraging and enlivening and I am so grateful to have gotten to connect with her before her passing in 2020.

More recently, I have been trying to get some poems published. Though the process of writing poetry is more important than the publishing of it, it would still be great to see my poems out in the world! So far, I have been longlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2022 and I have exhibited paintings inspired by ten of my poems as part of Poetry Day Ireland 2022. I will persevere with my poems, and as Pat wrote in one of her letters to me: '“get them out into the world, suffer the slings and arrows of rejection slips - and keep on writing.”