Authors, Alice Kinsella, Molly Hennigan and Louise Nealon will discuss things we learn from our mothers and grandmothers. They will refer to what has changed and what has stayed the same when it comes to how women are represented in Irish fiction and non-fiction. This discussion will be moderated by Clíona Ó Gallchoir lecturer in English, UCC and co-editor with Heather Ingram of A history of modern Irish women’s literature.

Alice Kinsella is the author of a poetry pamphlet, Sexy Fruit (Broken Sleep, 2018) and editor of Empty House: poetry and prose on the climate crisis (Doire Press, 2021). Milk (Picador, 2023) is her debut book of prose. She is an Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Artist. She lives in Mayo with her family.

Molly Hennigan is an Irish writer and editor living in Galway. She has spent the last few years between Galway and Massachusetts, working   on her PhD. Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, Tolka and The Pigs Back. Her first book The Celestial Realm was nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year. She will be the guest non-fiction editor for Banshee for the autumn/winter issue this year and is also editing an anthology on the work of Maeve Brennan which will be published by New Island Books later this year. Molly is currently working on her first novel.

Clíona Ó Gallchoir is a senior lecturer in English at University College Cork. Her research focuses on the literature and culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing particularly on women’s writing, Irish writing, and constructions of gender, sexuality and childhood. Her publication include A History of Modern Irish Women’s Literature (2018), co-edited with Heather Ingman, Key Irish Women Writers: Maria Edgeworth (2022), and essays and articles in European Romantic Review, Irish University Review, and Irish Literature in Transition, 1700-1780 (2020).