The Arts Council has a long-standing partnership with a number of Irish universities offering Writer-in-Residence/Fellowship positions to provide university students with an opportunity to work with and learn from writers of distinction, and to enable writers to develop their work while in a position of relative financial stability. 
 
The Arts Council is pleased to announce the following Writer-in-Residence/Fellowship appointments for 2023.

Aifric Mac Aodha, has been appointed Irish-language Writer-in-Residence at Dublin City University. The Irish-language Writer-in-Residence will be based in Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge on the DCU All Hallows Campus.

Aifric Mac Aodha is the Irish-language poetry editor of Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly and gorse. Her first poetry collection, Gabháil Syrinx (The Taking of Syrinx), was published by An Sagart in 2010 and her poetry has been published in various magazines and journals, including POETRY Young Irish Poets. Her work has been translated to many languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish and Czech. She has been awarded several bursaries by The Arts Council and, in recent years, she has read at numerous festivals in Europe, America, Canada and India. Her latest collection, Foreign News, with translations by David Wheatley, was published by The Gallery Press in 2017.

Sophie White has been appointed Writer in Residence at the School of English, Dublin City University.

Sophie White is a novelist, essayist and podcaster from Dublin. She also holds a First-Class Honours degree in Sculpture from NCAD. Her first four books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown (Gill 2016), Filter This (Hachette, 2019), Unfiltered (Hachette, 2020) and The Snag List (Hachette, 2022) have been bestsellers and award nominees. Her fifth book, the bestselling memoir Corpsing (Tramp Press, 2021), was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction. Her sixth book, Where I End (Tramp Press, 2022) was called, “brilliantly visceral”  by the Guardian and “exquisite and disturbing, brutish and beautifully crafted” by The Irish Times.

Sophie writes a weekly column ‘Nobody Tells You’ for the Sunday Independent LIFE magazine and her writing has been nominated for numerous media awards. TV adaptations of her first two books are in development and she co-hosts the chart-topping comedy podcasts, Mother of Pod and The Creep Dive.

Maynooth University Writer in Residence will be held by Paul Lynch. Paul will be situated in the Creative Writing programmes in the English Department at Maynooth University.


Paul Lynch is the internationally acclaimed author of four novels — Beyond the Sea, Grace, The Black Snow and Red Sky in Morning, with a fifth novel to be published in 2023. He has won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and France’s booksellers’ prize, Prix Libr’à Nous for Best Foreign Novel, among other prizes.

He has been shortlisted for many international awards, including the UK’s Walter Scott Prize, the William Saroyan International Prize in the US and France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, Prix Littérature-Monde, and the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. Born in Limerick in 1977, he grew up in Donegal and lives in Dublin with his wife and two children.

The NUI Galway Writer in Residence position will be held by Jessica Traynor.

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist, and poetry editor at Banshee. Her debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times poetry book of the year. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary, the Listowel Poetry Prize, and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Operas include Paper Boat, a commission from Irish National Opera and Music for Galway, and The Wanderer, commissioned by Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Essays have recently appeared in Tolka, PVA, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review and Banshee.


Recent poetry commissions include ‘Rhizomes’ for Earth Rising Festival at IMMA with composer Tom Lane, and Lost Lace at the Iveagh Gardens with visual artist Miriam McConnon. Residencies include Carlow College, the Yeats Society Sligo, the Seamus Heaney Home Place and dlr LexIcon. She is a Creative Fellow of UCD.

 James Harpur has been appointed as Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.


James Harpur has published eight collections of poetry, including his two latest volumes, The Examined Life, an odyssey through boarding school, which received the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize; and The Oratory of Light, poems inspired by St Columcille / Columba. He has won a number of prizes and awards for his books, including the UK National Poetry Competition and the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize. Last year he published his debut novel, The Pathless Country, set in the years leading up to the 1916 Rising and featuring a young hero trying to seek spiritual meaning in life. The book won the JG Farrell Award, an Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair award, and was shortlisted for the John McGahern Prize. James is a member of Aosdána.

Lisa Harding has been appointed as Writer in Residence at University College Cork.

Lisa Harding is a writer, actress, playwright. She received an MPhil in creative writing from TCD in 2014. Harvesting, her debut novel, won the Kate O’Brien award, was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Kerry Group Prize in 2018.  It is being republished in the US in 2023 in a new version, titled Cloud Girls. Her second novel, Bright Burning Things, was published internationally to widespread critical acclaim.  It received a starred review in the Publisher’s Weekly, was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, a Dalkey Literary Award, and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a People Magazine Choice, and a read with Jenna Book Club Pick as featured on the Today Show. Both novels are in development for film and TV. Short stories have been published in the Dublin Review, The Lonely Crowd and Winter Papers among others. Plays have been performed at the Battersea Arts centre, Theatre 503 and The Project Arts Centre. Her third novel, Truth Game, is due to be published in 2024. She has taught widely with community groups, at various literary festivals and The Irish Writers Centre.  

University College Dublin Writer in Residence position will be held by Victoria Kennefick.

Victoria Kennefick is a writer and teacher from Cork now based in Kerry. She graduated with a PhD from UCC in 2009 and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and an IRCHSS Award. Her debut poetry collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2022 and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award 2022. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. It was a book of the year in The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Telegraph, The Sunday Independent and The White Review. Victoria is the current poet in residence at the Yeats Society Sligo. 

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