Episode 3 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution with Seán Hewitt

The National Library of Ireland

In Episode 3 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution I am joined by Seán Hewitt for a conversation about his work as Poet-in-Residence at the Irish Queer Archive. In this episode we discuss some of the difficult things about working with archive, including violence against LGBTQ+ people and the murder of Declan Flynn in 1982. Seán Hewitt’s debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2020. It won The Laurel Prize in 2021, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their "30 under 30" artists in Ireland. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, is forthcoming from Jonathan Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the USA in July this year. He is a book critic for The Irish Times and teaches Modern British & Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. The music for the Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is “Saharakungoh” by Fehdah. Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is created by Dr Julie Morrissy as part of the Poet-in-Residence programme at the National Library of Ireland, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. Sound and production are by the Museum of Literature Ireland. NLI Sources: MS 17528/4: Copy typescript letter from Dorothy McArdle to Joseph McGarrity regarding the poverty experienced in Connemara and Kerry due to famine and the imprisonment of breadwinners, and denouncing the violence of Free State troops, 1924 June 8 MS 41492/1/11: Letter from Alice Milligan to Lily O'Brennan concerning her 'Arbour Hill Poem' MS 41492/1/31: Letter from Alice Milligan to Lily O'Brennan concerning an upcoming party, a new boiler and her poetry MSS 45,936 – 46,054: Ireland Queer Archives Papers 1974-2005. National Library of Ireland, www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/151_IQA.pdf References: Cúirt International Festival of Literature. www.cuirt.ie/ Hewitt, Seán. All Down Darkness Wide. Jonathan Cape & Penguin Press, 2022. --. "The Irish Queer Archive". Holy Show, Issue 4, 2022 (forthcoming) ---. J. M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism. Oxford University Press, 2021. ---. “Joelle Taylor: We all walk around with legions of ghosts within us”. The Irish Times, 29 Jan. 2020, www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/joelle-taylor-we-all-walk-around-with-legions-of-ghosts-within-us-1.4779542 ---. Tongues of Fire. Jonathan Cape, 2020. Kenny, Oisín. “A Lifetime of Change”. GCN, no. 363, Mar. 2020, www.magazine.gcn.ie/articles/195710?article=30-1 Morrissy, Julie. “Phonica: #3 Julie Morrissy ‘Certain Individual Women’ / WE, The PEOPLE”. Hotel, www.partisanhotel.co.uk/Julie-Morrissy