You can book your tickets now for this event to launch a new collaborative publication produced by Hillsborough Castle and Gardens and The John Hewitt Society. Five prominent Northern Ireland based writers have been commissioned to respond to five historical figures from Hillsborough’s past and have created new pieces of writing to animate the lives of these former residents. The publication also includes additional contributions by participants from a range of community groups who took part in workshops with the writers. The launch will include readings from each of the writers and a selection of readings by community participants. The writers included are: Jan Carson, Emily DeDakis, Maeve O’Lynn, Ian Sansom and Myra Zepf.

I will be working with Atlas Women's Centre in Lisburn on bringing together an epistolary-inspired narrative based on the life of Lady Alice Maria Hill. 

This project is supported by Heritage Lottery Fund and Community Relations Council. We would like to thank the Institute for Conflict Research for their support for this project.

New work up on Fallow Media this week.

Some glimpses into the world of Xenophon: Ubi Tunc Vox Inauditae Melodiae? Et Vox Inauditae Linguae? on show in Triskel Arts Centre, Cork from 4th October - 25th November 2018, admission free.

Another McGibbon O'Lynn collaboration with sculpture and animation by Siobhán McGibbon, Poetry / Sound Direction by Maeve O'Lynn, Sound Design by Malachy Costello and Vocals by Susan Davey.

Delighted to be featured as an Irish Times Visual Arts highlight.

Come see / listen / make...

Abridged is an awesome thing: a beautiful journal that brings art and poetry together in an often both illuminating and unsettling way, edited by the wonderful Greg McCartney, a former colleague of mine and also the man who introduced me to Siobhán McGibbon and thus I guess he is somehow also the genesis of McGibbon O'Lynn...

In the current issue, Abridged is focused on the notion of Relapse: " Abridged is exploring our personal and societal obsession with the past and our (increasingly ironic, given the technology available) seemingly inevitable retreat into it."

I am very pleased to have a couple of poems in this issue, especially since they are among some very good company.

The current issue of Abridged is being launched:
Thurs 19th July - Golden Threat Gallery in Belfast
Fri 20th July - RUA RED, Dublin
Sat 4th August - Void Gallery, Derry

Some other fabulous Abridged facts include: it is FREE and it also comes in an array of amazing cover choices...

I was genuinely so excited to get in for a proper behind the scenes tour at the Tropical Ravine and Botanic Gardens earlier this month! Discussions are on-going about a potential series of Autumn writing workshops in one of Belfast's coolest and most iconic spaces.

This month I have been facilitating a creative community engagement programme, alongside a visual artist, with a wide variety of different groups in and around Hillsborough. The theme is "Everyone a Guest" and it is a consultative programme which seeks to elicit and develop creative responses to this theme, which will inform a new artwork which has been commissioned for Hillsborough Castle.

The castle is currently closed as it is undergoing a major £16m renovation, so many of our workshops are taking place in the adjacent Old Courthouse building, in the Market Room. The renovation to Hillsborough Castle will be completed in stages: its new Clore Learning Centre, in the converted stables, will open to the public in April 2019 and this new artwork, along with the work created by the groups as part of our workshop programme, will be on display.

Xenophon: From the Beginning, McGibbon O'Lynn's first solo show has just finished so I'm excited to share a few new bits of poetry goodness with you! First up, a new audio poem, 'The Symbols of My Awakening: A Field Recording'

And then a few details from some new, layered erasure poetry.

Look forward to having these out on show again soon.

Last year, I had the lovely job of being commissioned by Ring of Gullion Landscape Partnership to work with a number of community groups, local experts and organisations to firstly research and then script a number of stories, which would be made available for visitors to listen to via two "listening posts".

The first listening post was for Victoria Lock in Newry and I got to research and talk to people about the history of the canal, how the restored lock actually works, the local history of seafaring from Fathom, the Flagstaff Fiesta and wildlife in the area.

The second listening post was for beautiful Camlough Lake, and while I was busy researching the area and its history I discovered my good friend Cathy and her family are from Camlough so it is a small world indeed! This post has stories about secret tunnels and outdoor swimming, and I am feeling very inspired to get in for a splash this summer - though, perhaps not as inspired as some of the locals who have competed in Siberian ice swimming challenges...

Anyway, although my part of the project was completed in 2017, the scripts then had to be recorded and the posts made so I was delighted to get an email last week to let me know they have now been installed. So if you are visiting the gorgeous Ring of Gullion area over the summer (and you should - it's class) and you get a chance, please go and have a listen!

This week we marked the conclusion of 2018's XBorders: Accord project with a reading event at the Irush Writers Centre, showcasing completed work and work in progress from the 18 writers who completed the programme.

I have learned a lot from taking part in this programme and I have had the privilege to meet some incredible writers and all round humans from across the island and around the world. I hope to be able to draw on my newly honed editing skills and all the MANY ideas I now have on borders for years to come. With thanks to Maria McManus who facilitated the course throughout, Patsy Horton for her work with us and feedback, and to Irish Writers Centre and Arts Council NI for their funding which allowed it to happen.

I was in the fortunate position to be invited to create a response to Hickey & Hickey's inaugural curation, House Taken Over. A site-specific show, on for one weekend only as part of Sonorities Festival, last night was the opening night.

This is a house I already know well, from dinners, Christmas parties, birthday parties, a wedding, drinking wine in the kitchen, Halloween bonfires, watching movies... So it was very different and in many ways unheimlich to consider the house itself as an entity separate from the family I know living here; a fundamentally empty space.

I was particularly inspired by three stories about the house. The first involved the house's covert purpose durung WWII as a listening post; a theory proposed by some local historuans which acted as the inspiration for the whole curation. Secondly a story that Ciara told me about how the house's previous residents used to send the house itself, rather than the family now living there, Christmas cards after they moved out. And finally a story that Elizabeth told us about a friend of theirs who, many years ago, was adamant that when she was staying in the house that she heard it say goodnight to her.

So I had a lot of rich material to draw on in creating 'The Time Of Their Coming', my response to House Taken Over, the themes it explores, and the house itself.