Gail McConnell
Bran, North Lead
Serving as a Reader in English at Queen’s University Belfast, this individual publishes poetry and literary criticism. Author of Northern Irish Poetry and Theology (Palgrave, 2014), contributions include articles and chapters on Irish poetry in boundary 2, Irish University Review, and The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry. The debut poetry book, The Sun is Open (Penned in the Margins, 2021), explores the father’s murder by the IRA and has won The John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Award and The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. Additionally, two poetry pamphlets – Fothermather (2019) and Fourteen (2018) – and three arts features for BBC Radio 4, based on poetry and one on Seamus Heaney, have been published.
Karl O’Hanlon
Bran, Lead Investiagor
A poet and lecturer in the Department of English at Maynooth University, this individual was shortlisted for the Eavan Boland Emerging Poet Award in 2023. The forthcoming monograph, Official Voices: Poets and the Irish State, will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2024. Articles on poetry have been published in The Journal of Modern Literature, Modernism/modernity, Études Anglaises, English, and The Cambridge Quarterly. Poetry has appeared in Agenda, Bad Lilies, The Irish Times, PN Review, Poetry, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Stinging Fly. The pamphlet And Now They Range was published by Guillemot Press in 2016.
Julie Morrissy
Bran, Postdoctoral Researcher
Holding the distinction of being the first Poet-in-Residence at the National Library of Ireland, this researcher has received several awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newman Fellowship in Creativity, and the Next Generation Artist Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. Degrees in Creative Writing (Ulster University), Literature (Toronto Metropolitan University), and Law (University College Dublin) have been earned. Poem-artworks have been exhibited at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, and the Museum of Literature Ireland. Fellowships and postdoctoral positions have been held at Maynooth University, University College Dublin, and the University of Notre Dame.
