Eavan Boland Award celebrates creativity, connection & cross-border exchange in poetry

Posted on: 06 June 2025

The Eavan Boland Award returns for 2025, with support from Poetry Ireland, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Manchester, and the British Council Ireland.

The award is open to submissions from early-career poets based in the UK and mid-career poets based in Ireland, with application details at poetryireland.ie.

Liz Kelly, Director of Poetry Ireland, said: “Eavan Boland felt very strongly that space for new voices must be made, and diversity in all its forms must be cherished, if we wished to safeguard the future of poetry. In her editorial for Poetry Ireland Review 125, she wrote, “the margin re-defines the centre, and not the other way around. But that margin has to be visible, has to be vocal, has to be sustained by new critiques as well as new poems.” This year’s award celebrates new voices in a way that allows for exploration and regeneration, and the two-year award will increase visibility and creative potential of both awardees.”

The Eavan Boland Award, founded by Poetry Ireland in 2021 and now a biennial award, celebrates Eavan Boland's role as a pathfinder, teacher and leader in the world of poetry.

Commenting on the awards, Jarlath Killeen, Professor in Victorian Literature, said: "Eavan Boland was one of the greatest of modern Irish poets, an incisive commentator on Irish literature and culture, and an inspirational mentor to creative writing students for decades. She was also a graduate and even (briefly) member of staff of Trinity College Dublin. Indeed, her pamphlet 23 Poems appeared when she was in her first year as a student here, and this effectively formed the start of what was to be an extraordinary career.

"2025 has already seen one of the main libraries in Trinity renamed in honour of Eavan Boland, and we are very proud of our association with a figure of such significance in the world of poetry and the creative arts. It is, therefore, only fitting that the Eavan Boland Award should be supported by Trinity's School of English."

The Eavan Boland Award honours her legacy by fostering emerging and mid-career poets through two cross-residency opportunities at Trinity College Dublin with the School of English and University of Manchester at the Centre for New Writing. 

In 2025, the Eavan Boland Award will support:

• An early-career poet based in the UK, who will be in residence at TCD School of English (Creative Writing) in November 2025, and
• A mid-career poet based in Ireland, who will take up a residency at the Centre for New Writing at University of Manchester in October 2025.

John McAuliffe, Professor of Poetry at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing and Associate Publisher at Carcanet Press, said: “The Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester has a long tradition of supporting poets, offering an inspiring and responsive environment, and we are delighted to be associated now with this award, which has of course a particularly close fit with Manchester.  We are lucky to be able to draw on the rich resources of the John Rylands Research Institute, whose holdings include the work and correspondence of so many great Irish writers, including Eavan Boland, whose work was published here by our colleague Michael Schmidt at Carcanet and at PN Review.

"Eavan Boland thrived as a writer at work in a university context, while her commitment to the work of editing and publishing is clear from her correspondence with Michael. We are delighted too that this award, in Eavan's honour, will renew Manchester's contact with Dublin and Trinity College's living poetic culture.”

This year's selectors are John McAuliffe, Professor of Poetry at University of Manchester, and Dr Rachael Hegarty, poet, educator and Dubliner.

Dr Rachael Hegarty, poet, educator and award selector, said: “Eavan Boland once said 'many poets begin in fear and hope: fear that the poetic past will turn out to be a monologue rather than a conversation. And hope that their voice can be heard as that past turns into the future.’ The winners of the Eavan Boland Award will be granted time, mentorship and workshop space to converse with the poetic past and, hopefully, add their honed voices to the poetic future.”

Full details are available on the Poetry Ireland website. 

* Cover image: Eavan Boland by Joe St. Leger

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