Celebrating St Brigid’s Day, this poetry workshop will be led by poet Grace Wilentz. It is inspired by the Ribín Bríghud or Brat Bhride, laid outside before sunset on the eve of Brigid’s Feast Day and brought back in before sunrise, endowed by the dew with healing properties. In this workshop we will invoke goddesses from multiple traditions, explore the transformative power of words, and write original poems weighted with the intention of carrying support, guidance and sustenance into the world. For inspiration, we will look at relevant artworks from The Hugh Lane Gallery’s collection and discuss poems that become the waiting room of the goddess. Participants will come away from this workshop with new ideas and some fresh creative work.

This workshop is part of the programme for Brigit: Dublin City Celebrating Women.

Grace Wilentz was born in New York City and grew up in Greenwich Village. A graduate of Harvard University, with postgraduate degrees from Oxford University and University College Dublin, she moved to Ireland in 2005 to study the Irish language and became an Irish citizen in 2015.

Her first collection, The Limit of Light, was published by The Gallery Press in October 2020 and went on to be named a book of the year in The Irish Independent and The Irish Times.

She has received support from The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon including a Literature Bursary and a Next Generation Award. Her most recent collection, Harmony (Unfinished), published in October 2024, was a finalist for the Munster Literature Centre’s Farmgate Award. She is the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Notre Dame in Dublin.

This workshop is presented as part of our Hugh Lane Gallery’s Explore & Learn offsite programmes during the Gallery’s period of temporary closure.

No experience required. Advance booking essential.