Carlow College hosts annual literary awards and writing showcase

CARLOW College hosted its 14th annual literary awards and creative writing showcase in the neighbouring Visual arts centre on Tuesday 14 April. The annual event gathers together the college’s literary community for a night to recognise and celebrate the creative writing talent of its students, with awards presented for best in prose and poetry writing over the past year.

This year’s awards were presented by poet Molly Twomey, author of Raised Among Vultures (2022) and Chic to be Sad (2025), a recipient of Arts Council and Ireland Chair of Poetry bursaries.

Friends and family, staff, students and past graduates of Carlow College were in attendance for what was an engaging and entertaining evening. The night opened with members of the third-year creative writing class presenting a showcase of their writing.

The class delivered what proved a dramatic, moving and varied showcase of their work. Their poems explored the type of oddball characters you might encounter in small town settings in Ireland, to the pleasure of enjoying chips at Kilmore Quay with your mother.

Lecturer in English and creative writing, Dr Derek Coyle, said: “How dynamic and alive the writing scene is in Carlow and the south-east and Carlow College is committed to fostering that talent and to helping writers develop and hone their skills.

“Carlow is blessed to have such a stunning venue as Visual for an occasion like this, and students were fortunate to encounter the writing talent of a young poet like Molly Twomey, originally from Lismore, Co Waterford, as a role model and exemplar of what is possible, particularly for women writers in Ireland today,” he continued.

Following the awards, Molly Twomey commended the entrants on the high standard of their work and encouraged all participants to keep persevering and working hard at refining and improving their craft. During the question-and-answer session, she mentioned the importance of reading, how so many of her poems grow out of a response to other poems and poets that she has been reading.

The poems she read from her latest collection Chic to be Sad were powerfully personal, exploring the type of pressures young women experience in today’s society around body image and appearance, among other things.

The following awards were presented in the categories of poetry and prose: poetry winners – 1) Ann J Irwin, The Drawer of Hidden Things; 2) Aaron Doyle (Kildare), Terms and Conditions; 3) Daniel Butler (Kilkenny), Black Jacket I’m Too Big For; 4) Simon Bourke (Kilkenny), Shampoo; prose winners – 1) Margaret Levingstone, On the Edge; 2) Polly Chapman (Wexford), The Understory; 3) Joy Redmond (Wexford), The Beachcombers and Lover.