Cathy Galvin Readings

 

Cathy Galvin is a poet and a journalist, and has been a champion of other writers and writing, co-founding The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and founding and directing The Word Factory short story organisation. She has been nominated for a variety of awards including the Ilkley Poetry Prize and Listowel Poetry Prize and is the recipient of a Hawthornden Fellowship, Heinrich Böll (Achill Island) residency and an Arts Council England DYCP award. Her first full-length book of poetry, Ethnology: a love song for Connemara (Bloodaxe Books, 2026), follows three pamphlet sequences of poetry, Black & Blue (Melos Press, 2014), Rough Translation (Melos Press, 2016) and Walking The Coventry Ring Road with Lady Godiva (Guillemot Press, 2019).

Published in February 2026, Ethnology draws on the mystical cry for the dead of Cathy Galvin's Irish-speaking ancestors. Within an epic narrative she reclaims place, people and language, creating a bridge between our own times and a Connemara community on the margins of Europe. Drawing on classic forms within literary and oral traditions, Ethnology becomes a love song for Connemara, witness to vivid encounters: between the living and the dead and between the poets, folklorists and ethnologists who have written about the West of Ireland for their own agendas.

Ethnology is on the longlist for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection 2026 (one of the Forward Prizes).

~~~~~

An article by Cathy Galvin featured in The Tablet of 7 March 2026. She was writing about her first full-length poetry book Ethnology: a love song for Connemara, focusing on the historical and family background to the book.  The piece was illustrated with a photo of Cathy pictured in the ruined cottage she inherited on Mason Island off the coast of Connemara, and was accompanied by her poem ‘Ethnology’. The article is available online here (register to read for free).

~~~~~

‘Ethnology: a love song for Connemara is a tightly focused book. It pursues its themes with a laser-like precision. But Galvin’s world never feels monolithic. For all its emphasis on loss of both people and place, there lies beneath that an abundant sense of life, its meaning and its worth. This is, as the cliché often suggests, a book to return to, a book with real heft and stature.’ – Ian Pople, London Grip

‘…a collection that is rooted in the landscape and nuances of Máisean Island and its past inhabitants. Galvin also questions what home and belonging mean when family roots have left their point of origin.’ – Emma Lee, The High Window

'Cathy Galvin's rich, complex Ethnology: A Love Song for Connemara is a history of Galvin's mother's native Mason Island and a tremendous elegy for her son [...] It is also a burning lyrical investigation into the power of language and those who use that power.  [...] Galvin is verbally adept, a master of many forms, but perhaps it is the further paradox of being so close to a language she didn't understand as a child that creates this hungry, groundbreaking book, brimming with grief and desire'...' – Martina Evans, The Irish Times 

~~~~~

Cathy Galvin was interviewed live down the line from Cornwall on RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena on 5 March 2026 ahead of her Dublin launch of 24 March 2026. She was discussing her debut poetry book Ethnology: a love song for Connemara with host Rick O’Shea. She read her poems ‘Ethnology’ and ‘Choosing what to say to Dr Hyde’, part 2 of the sequence ‘Mythology’.   

A separate podcast of Cathy Galvin's interview is here. 

 

An in-depth interview with Cathy Galvin featured on the Books for Breakfast podcast of 2 April 2026. This was recorded at and before the Hodges Figgis Dublin launch of Ethnology: a love song for Connemara. The episode began with a recording of host Enda Wyley’s introduction at the launch.

John F Deane introduces Ethnology at 7:40. Cathy features from 15:50. Listen here.

 

Another in-depth interview with Cathy Galvin was featured on the Irish with Mollie podcast of 11 May 2026.  Listen here.  A taster featured on Mollie's Instagram page here.

~~~~~

An interview Cathy Galvin was featured as a double page spread in both the Galway City Tribune and the Connacht Tribune of 15 May 2026. Cathy was speaking to Judy Murphy about her debut poetry book Ethnology: a love song for Connemara ahead of her Galway launch at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Tuesday 26 May, 6pm. Fellow Bloodaxe poet Louis de Paor will introduce the Galway event and will be in conversation with Cathy Galvin. A link to the event is below.

In print 15 May 2026.  Also available online here.

~~~~~

For more on Cathy Galvin's connections to Coventry, and to read a poem from Ethnology: a love song for Connemara, see a feature in Proletarian Poetry here.

~~~~~

 

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

 

Cathy Galvin launched Ethnology with series of events in the UK and Ireland over Spring 2026. 

 

Ledbury Poetry Festival 2026

[03 February 2026]

Back to Poetry Events