{"id":261,"date":"2024-03-20T12:51:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T12:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/?page_id=261"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:16:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:16:58","slug":"keynote-speakers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/keynote-speakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Keynote Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Kylemore<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Kevin Barry<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Barry (born 1 December 1969) is an acclaimed Irish writer known for his distinctive voice, dark humour, and richly atmospheric prose. He has published four novels and three collections of short stories, earning widespread critical recognition both in Ireland and internationally. His debut novel City of Bohane<\/em> (2011) won the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most prestigious prizes for English-language fiction. He followed this with Beatlebone<\/em> (2015), which received the Goldsmiths Prize for its innovative approach to the novel form, and Night Boat to Tangier<\/em> (2019), which was longlisted for the Booker Prize. His later work, including The Heart in Winter<\/em>, continues to showcase his lyrical style and fascination with marginal lives and offbeat characters. In addition to his fiction, Barry serves as an editor of Winter Papers<\/em>, an annual arts and culture publication.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Caitr\u00edona Lally <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Caitr\u00edona Lally is an Irish writer celebrated for her imaginative, offbeat fiction and sharply observed explorations of outsider perspectives. She is the author of two novels, Eggshells<\/em> (2017) and Wunderland<\/em> (2021), and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lally studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 2004. She subsequently spent time teaching English in Japan and travelling, before working as a copywriter and later as a home aide in New York. She began writing her debut novel Eggshells<\/em> in 2011 during a period of unemployment, continuing the work while employed in data entry. The manuscript won the Irish Writers Centre\u2019s 2014 Novel Fair competition, securing her literary representation and leading to publication. The novel, which follows an eccentric young woman wandering Dublin in search of belonging, was shortlisted for the Newcomer Award at the Irish Book Awards and the Kate O\u2019Brien Debut Novel Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, Lally received a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council, supporting the development of her second novel. She also contributed a spoken word performance to the 2016 Dublin Port project Starboard Home<\/em>. Her second novel, Wunderland<\/em>, published in 2021, centres on an Irish exile working in Hamburg and reflects her interest in miniature worlds and unconventional lives.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Danny Denton<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Danny Denton is a writer from Passage West, in Cork, and lectures on writing at UCC. His first novel, The Earlie King & The Kid In Yellow<\/em>, was published by Granta Books in 2018, and was subsequently shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Collyer-Bristow Novel of the Year award. His second novel, All Along The Echo<\/em>, was published by Atlantic Books in 2022, to great critical acclaim. A Daily Telegraph <\/em>\u2018Book of the Year\u2019, it was hailed by The Guardian <\/em>as a cyclone of a novel\u2019. The Irish Times<\/em> referred to it as \u2018highly original\u2026 something special\u2026 wonderful\u2019, while The Irish Independent <\/em>review proclaimed: \u2018A really fine novel\u2026cinematically vivid\u2026 strikingly ambitious\u2026 lovely, lyrical\u2026 original, poetic and beguiling.\u2019 His forthcoming novel, Betweenness<\/em>, will be published at the end of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among other publications (approx. 35 in total), his shorter work has appeared in The Stinging Fly<\/em>, Southword<\/em>, Granta<\/em>, Winter Papers<\/em>, The Dublin Review<\/em>, Tate Etc<\/em>, The Observer, The Guardian<\/em>, The Irish Times<\/em>, Architecture Ireland<\/em> & The Big Issue<\/em>. A fuller list of publications can be found below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is a former editor (and currently contributing editor) of The Stinging Fly<\/em> magazine. In 2023 (shortly after the end of Denton\u2019s editorial stewardship, 2018-2022), The New York Times <\/em>featured an article on the magazine, hailing it as \u2018something of a revelation in Irish literature.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denton is also a collaborator and curator. He curates the literature strand of the Cork Midsummer Festival, in which new literary works are written and performed in new lights, through trans-artform collaboration. He has also been an artist-in-residence, most recently at Sounds From A Safe Harbour (2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rachael Hegarty<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rachael Hegarty was born seventh child of a seventh child in Dublin and reared on the Northside. She was educated by the Holy Faith Sisters in Finglas, the U. Mass. Bostonians in America, the M.Phillers at Trinity and by the Ph.D. magicians at Queens. She lived, studied and worked in Boston and Japan for ten years. She is widely published in national and international journals and broadcast on RTE Radio. Rachael was the winner of the Francis Ledwidge Prize and Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. She was also shortlisted for the Hennessey New Irish Writer and Ver Poetry Prizes and highly commended for the Forward Poetry Prizes. She is an educator for the Trinity Access Programme and CDETB but reckons she learns more from her students than she can ever teach. She now lives, back on the Northside, with her feminist husband and two beloved-bedlam boys. (Salmon Poetry)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Dublin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Finola O’Kane<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Finola O\u2019Kane is an Irish architectural historian and scholar specialising in the history of designed landscapes in Ireland and the Atlantic world. Her work explores the cultural, philosophical, and aesthetic dimensions of landscape, with award-winning publications including Landscape Design in Eighteenth-Century Ireland<\/em> and Ireland and the Picturesque<\/em>. Her most recent book, Landscape Design and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Ireland and the United States, 1688\u20131815<\/em> (2023), has received major international recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A graduate of University College Dublin and the Architectural Association in London, O\u2019Kane is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and has held a research fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University. She has published widely on Irish urban and landscape history, co-edited volumes on Dublin and Ireland\u2019s global connections, and contributed to major exhibitions in Ireland, the UK, and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside her academic work, she has advised on the conservation and interpretation of significant historic landscapes across Ireland and previously directed UCD\u2019s Masters in Urban and Building Conservation programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Richard Cole<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Richard Cole bio<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rachael Hegarty<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rachael Hegarty was born seventh child of a seventh child in Dublin and reared on the Northside. She was educated by the Holy Faith Sisters in Finglas, the U. Mass. Bostonians in America, the M.Phillers at Trinity and by the Ph.D. magicians at Queens. She lived, studied and worked in Boston and Japan for ten years. She is widely published in national and international journals and broadcast on RTE Radio. Rachael was the winner of the Francis Ledwidge Prize and Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. She was also shortlisted for the Hennessey New Irish Writer and Ver Poetry Prizes and highly commended for the Forward Poetry Prizes. She is an educator for the Trinity Access Programme and CDETB but reckons she learns more from her students than she can ever teach. She now lives, back on the Northside, with her feminist husband and two beloved-bedlam boys. (Salmon Poetry)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rachael Hegarty<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rachael Hegarty was born seventh child of a seventh child in Dublin and reared on the Northside. She was educated by the Holy Faith Sisters in Finglas, the U. Mass. Bostonians in America, the M.Phillers at Trinity and by the Ph.D. magicians at Queens. She lived, studied and worked in Boston and Japan for ten years. She is widely published in national and international journals and broadcast on RTE Radio. Rachael was the winner of the Francis Ledwidge Prize and Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. She was also shortlisted for the Hennessey New Irish Writer and Ver Poetry Prizes and highly commended for the Forward Poetry Prizes. She is an educator for the Trinity Access Programme and CDETB but reckons she learns more from her students than she can ever teach. She now lives, back on the Northside, with her feminist husband and two beloved-bedlam boys. (Salmon Poetry)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Kylemore Kevin Barry Kevin Barry (born 1 December 1969) is an acclaimed Irish writer known for his distinctive voice, dark humour, and richly atmospheric prose. He has published four novels and three collections of short stories, earning widespread critical recognition both in Ireland and internationally. His debut novel City of Bohane (2011) won the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4787,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-261","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4787"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/261\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/kgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}