Clare-born poet, writer and journalist Dr Anne Casey will launch her sixth book in Ennistymon this Saturday June 21st following several years of research into Irish famine children in Australia.
Originally from Miltown Malbay but based in Sydney for many years, Anne is an international award-winning poet/writer and author of five previous poetry collections, including one co-authored book.
Her latest book ‘Seang’ (Hungering) will be launched at the Salmon Bookshop and Literary Centre in Ennistymon. Guest speaker on the night will be Professor Eamonn Wall.
The book is based on many years’ research into the lost history of a group of Irish famine children who were refugees to Australia. Anne received a national award in Australia for this research and poetry last year and many of the poems have featured in international awards.
Anne said: “The book includes a poem I wrote in Irish and then in English inspired by my visit to the famine workhouse in Kilrush. It also recounts the story of the Black and Tans firebombing houses in Miltown in 1921 (including my family home on Main Street). This book also hopes to serve as a beacon for the 473 million children in our world today impacted by war, hunger and famine.”
For the 180th anniversary of An Gorta Mór’s commencement, Seang poignantly reclaims the human story behind the lost history of a group of rebel girls who were daughters of refugees from Ireland’s Great Famine. It seeks to restore voice to these girls and their families, who were silenced over and over during their lives, and who suffered destitution, discrimination, and intergenerational incarceration and hardships largely driven by colonial policies, attitudes and actions in Ireland and in their country of refuge, Australia.
Incorporating award-winning research and poetry, Seang offers a beacon for the 473 million children in our world today who are impacted by conflict and extreme food insecurity driven by the same three factors¾climate, politics and economics.
Anne Casey has worked for 30 years as a journalist, magazine editor, media communications director, academic and legal author, holding senior positions in government and the private sector.
Her writing is widely published and anthologised, ranking in leading national daily newspaper, The Irish Times’ Most Read. She has won literary prizes in Ireland, Australia, the UK, the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and India, most recently the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies Poetry Prize, American Writers Review Prize, the Henry Lawson Poetry Prize and iWoman Global Award for Literature. She has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for the Red Room Poetry Fellowship.
Senior Poetry Editor of Other Terrain and Backstory literary journals (Swinburne University) from 2017 to 2020, she has served on numerous literary advisory boards and as Vice President of Voices of Women arts alliance. She is a regular guest editor for literary journals and is a founding member of the Prankqueans, an Irish-Australian women’s arts collective, twice commended in New South Wales Parliament for cultural contribution in Australia.
She is an international reader and speaker, headlining at fixtures, festivals and academic institutions. Her previous poetry collections are the light we cannot see (Salmon Poetry, 2021); out of emptied cups (Salmon Poetry, 2019); where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry, 2017); Portrait of a Woman Walking Home (Recent Work Press, 2021); and Some Days the Bird, co-written with US poet, US poet, Heather Bourbeau (Beltway Editions, 2022).
Anne has long-standing creative collaborations with artists and musicians in Ireland, Australia and the US; her work has featured in international art exhibitions and on commercial music albums. She has a PhD in archival poetry and poetics of resistance from the University of Technology Sydney where she researches and teaches creative writing. Anne also holds a law degree from University College Dublin and qualifications in media communications.
*Dr Anne Casey featured on Clare FM’s Atlantic Tales series in 2023.