Irish language poet Nuala NiDhomhnaill named second Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies

Irish language poet Nuala NiDhomhnaill has been named the second holder of the Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Endowed Chair in Irish Studies. This chair was established by Charles Heimbold Jr. in 1999. She will teach and lecture at the University during the spring 2001 semester.

NiDhomhnaill was born in St. Helens, Lancashire, England, in 1952 to Irish-speaking parents. She grew up in the Dingle Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking region) of Co. Kerry and in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. She attended University College, Cork.

In addition to English and Irish, she became fluent in French, German, Dutch and Turkish. She lived in the Netherlands and in Turkey, where she taught English at the Middle East Technical University. In 1980, she returned to the Dingle Peninsula to write full time.

NiDhomhnaill has published nine books of poetry in the Irish language. She has written three plays for children and three screenplays, all in Irish, as well as the libretto for The Wooing of Eadoin, sung by the Irish National Chambre Choir in 1994. She has contributed to several Irish poetry anthologies and edited Jumping Off Shadows: Selected Contemporary Irish Poets (Cork University Press 1995). Her work has won her a number of prestigious literary prizes, both in Ireland and the United States.

NiDhomhnaill’s writings have been translated into French, German, Czech, Danish, Swedish, Italian, Polish, Norwegian, Estonian, Finnish, Dutch, Breton, Bosnian, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician.

She has had extensive teaching, reading and lecturing experience in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Europe and Japan. In 1992, she was named the first artist-in-residence at her alma mater, University College, Cork. She held the same position in Portmarnock Community College, Co. Dublin, and in the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council. During 1998, she was an adjunct professor at New York University and also was the Burns Library Visiting Scholar at Boston College. She is a regular broadcaster on Irish radio and television.

NiDhomhnaill lives with her husband and four children in Cabinteely, Co. Dublin.