We attended the first in-person School of English and Digital Humanities welcome event since 2019, last Tuesday 18th of October. It was really lovely to get together in person again. We were happy to meet the new head of School, Claire Connolly and the new School manager, Aisling O' Leary. It was, as always, great to catch up with Danny Denton again.

It was also a lovely opportunity to chat again with Aoife, hear about the progress on her MA in Belfast and hear her read her wonderful work again.

We will shortly be opening this years Scholarship application process and look forward to all the great work we're sure will be submitted. 

This year we were finally able to gather in person again to celebrate Eoin's tribute night. The event took place in the Spailpín Fánach on the first of September. As always, the room was full of love, creativity and friendship, just the way he would have wanted it to be. Thanks as always to Eoin's close friends in organising and performing on the night. It was really lovely as well to see poets from past years coming back with their family and friends to perform and support. One of our ambitions with the scholarship was to create a supportive community of writers in Cork, and we really saw that coming to fruition this year. It was also as always a lovely opportunity to catch up with each other and a remember Eoin together. 

You can see the full playlist here. 

Eoin's very talented friend, Annie Bloch, recently released the official music video for her song; "The Saint". Annie has written a number of songs about Eoin, her relationship with him and her processing of her grief at his passing. She was a very close friend of Eoin's and we are always so happy to spend time with her when we can and to enjoy the music she creates and shares with us.

Below is Annie's performance of a series of original work at the online tribute night of 2021. We really look forward to hearing her perform again.

We are delighted to announce the winner of the fifth Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship, Aoife Obsorne. As part of the scholarship, Aoife will receive €1500 to allow her to focus on developing her writing over the summer. We hope to have our annual tribute night in-person again this year, and look forward to Aoife's performance. Aoife will also receive mentorship from the UCC writer-in-residence. You can follow Aoife's progress over the summer from her instagram page, @little.lost.starfish

Aoife has published numerous articles with local and national newspapers. Her most recent venture into literary criticism saw her write for the Paper Lanterns Young Adult Literary Journal. In 2016, Aoife placed second in her category at the National Newspapers of Ireland Press Pass Awards. She was also shortlisted for the International IMBAS Short Story Competition in 2018 and was a highly commended entrant of the 2020 NYC Midnight Microfiction Competition. We greatly look forward to reading her future work.

After reviewing the many talented applications, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Aoife Osborne (winner)
2. Emily Linehan (highly commended)

We are delighted to welcome Aoife and Emily to the community of poets and writers that is growing around the scholarship. We hope to see them both, any many of our past scholars and runners-up, at the tribute night later in the year. We thank all students who took the time to enter the scholarship and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year. 

After a very strange year and a bit, and having missed the 2020 tribute night, we held on online Zoom tribute on the 11th of September. As usual, a great effort was made by Eoin's closest friends to create a night of poetry and music. We were joined by our scholar for 2021, Maeve Joy Taggart, and our scholar for 2020, Alana Daly Mulligan. Many of Eoin's talented friends performed both covers and original songs and it was really great to see them all again. 

Though we may have had reservations about yet another Zoom get-together, this one was really special. The atmosphere of love and creativity that is so palpable on all tribute nights managed to come through. Having said that, we are very excited to get together in person next year, le cúnamh Dé!

We were, of course, beset by some technological issues. The various videos have plenty of moments of audio and/or video freeze. We still felt it was worthwhile to share them, You can access the full playlist here. 

Tarren Amor and Alisdair McDermid-Smith recently completed Ironman Finland in support of the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship and the Safe and Sound Organisation. A huge achievement and we were touched and honoured that Taz and Ali choose to use the event to fundraise for Eoin's scholarship. They donated €2950, pretty much covering two full years of the scholarship! The event happened to fall on the 6th anniversary of Eoin's passing and it is incredible to think of the feats the two lads achieved on that day in Finland this year! We hope to welcome both of them in Cork at some stage, but for now are just very grateful from afar.

This backstory is taken from Taz and Ali's facebook -
​​This year our aspirations have aligned and we find ourselves on the journey towards our first Ironman. As if 2020 wasn't challenging enough, we thought training for and completing an Ironman in 2021 whilst navigating life at sea should add a little extra spice.

We became great friends 5 years back meeting through the yachting industry and a shared passion for surfing and 'kiting'. For the past 3 years, we have been lucky enough to work on the same watersports-orientated vessel and continue to raise each other's standards in and out of the water. This lifestyle keeps us fit and healthy, but this year the desire to push our physical and mental limits calls us into one of the greatest endurance challenges going. By no means are we triathletes, but we are physically able and hungry to prove our potential as both individuals and friends.

There will, of course, be some hurdles along our journey within this global pandemic. As we've already seen there are no guarantees with travel or event planning these days, but this will not stop us from pushing ourselves for good cause. We will endeavor to complete the Ironman in Tahko, Finland on August 14th, but if for any reason this does not go ahead we will complete the next available event or just do it on our own.

We will tackle this path of chosen hardship over the next 6 months with the aim to raise money and awareness for those whom are not lucky enough to make such choices.

We are completing this event to raise money for two amazing charities:
The Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship
Safe and Sound Organisation 

Our warmest congratulations to Maeve Jane Taggart, the winner of the fourth Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship. To date, Maeve's creative writing projects have been largely poetry based, with poems collected on the Instagram account @maevejmct. Creative non-fiction writing has lead to the piece 'Sugar-Pilled Love' being shortlisted for the Wow! Women in Writing 2019 Creative Non-Fiction competition and the piece 'A 'Brief' Update on Cork's Attitude to Sexual Assault' being shortlisted for the 'I'll Show You Mine' journals 2019 prize in non-fiction. Creative writing work has been published in two volumes of The Quarryman, Motley Magazine and The Cherry Revolution. Non-fiction and news have been published in The University Express, Shared Future News, Motley and SpunOut.ie. Maeve will be mentored by this years' UCC writer in residence; Eimear Ryan and we look forward to reading her new work.​

After reviewing the many talented applications, the final shortlist was as follows:

1. Maeve Jane Taggart (winner)
2. Dara Hanley (highly commended)
3. Ianna Rosa Román (highly commended)

As always, we would like to thank all students who took the time to enter the scholarship and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year.  It is exciting to see interest and applications to the scholarship growing. It is also wonderful to be growing this catalogue of emerging writers.

​Eoin didn't get to build the great body of work he had hoped, but we think this work stands testament to his unique spirit and insight. This is Eoin's legacy, and our attempt to fulfil his wish as best we can. Thanks to Leanne O Sullivan and John McCarthy for help with editing and to Cónal Creedon for writing a wonderful foreword.

The book is available to buy under the "donate / buy" link above. All proceeds go to the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship.

With love, Is fada arís go bhfeicfimid a leithéid.

TAround this time each year, Eoin's friends led by Eamonn, Adam, Rob and Aengus, organise a tribute night. It was initially to remember Eoin through poetry and music, to reconnect with friends and family and to help us all process our grief together while celebrating those things Eoin valued most in life. In recent years it has also been a means to celebrate the winner and runner ups in the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship. 

In light of the pandemic, this year we decided that the safest thing would be to postpone the tribute night. This was a difficult decision as it is always a very special night of remembrance and celebration. However we wouldn't want anyone to encounter any unnecessary risk or for the tribute night to be a source of stress for anyone, so we feel it was the right decision.

We look forward to inviting Alana, Joy and Lara to our tribute night in 2021. In the meantime, we would love to share the beautiful video above, written and directed by Alana in memory of an exceptional boy; Mattie J.T. Stepanek. This piece won the Grand Prize in Poetry and Film at the Mattie J.T. Stepanek 2020 Poetry Award.

We also share three written pieces from Alana, Joy and Lara below;

The Fish
Alana Daly Mulligan
 
You and I sitting –
Two fisherfolk on a bench in Dunmore
With nothing but a sunset caught between us.
 
I look at the chips –
They are great cliffs splashed in a vinegary sea,
And the fish split open like a book.
 
My fork traces the rivers in its flesh
Back to the source, the bone,
What life has this creature known?
 
Between the waves of myth, fiction and reality,
I am myself a Fionn with my thumb firmly
Pulling on the star-fastened jacket,
 
Peeling it back, dripping grease and oil.
I’m toiling with the idea of my appetite
Escaping me when my meal hasn’t.
 
There are little hot blisters in its skin,
And I pick them off with my little fingers
To count the futures I should now see
 
As I decide to set the rest free.
It is an oath as strong as hazel wood
Sewn between a child and the sea.
 
You are none the wiser.
We eat in the shadows of the waves
And let the sunsets sail away.

Ode to a Knob
Joy Amber Curtis

Your cold hand twists my nose and I feel a sneeze.
I open the door slowly when I feel a breeze,
I make you believe I’m inhabited by the ghost of your great nan.
I once glowed bronze but age has left me dull and tan.

I give my consent to visitors who knock first.
And everyone else I vow to curse.
Snap their keys in my lock.
Jam my door when they try to pick-pock.

I always latch onto your jumper for attention
But when I broke was the only time I was mentioned.
You unscrewed me from my homely door-frame
The ornate knocker, once again, stealing my fame.

I had dreamt of owning a new, clear, crystal face
But I started to realise I was being replaced.
​
You throw me on a shelf deep into the shed.
And my metallic heart rapidly fills with dread.
I lose my screw eyes and try to count to ten.
I cry tears of rust and I never unlock again.

Lacuna
Lara Ni Chuirrin

We sat across from each other in his kitchen, the light above us shining feebly, flickering slightly.
I guess I arrived around six?
By the time we'd finished eating, the world outside was a deep inky blue that seemed to pour through the window behind him, the kind of night sky that if you got too close, it would swallow you up.
You would disappear.


I wonder if I knew then?


Dinner was:
Thick slices of pork, the fat barely crispy,
waxy potatoes,
beans.
The linoleum topped table wobbled as we hacked at the meat in silence.


When our cutlery had clattered down on empty plates, my fingers were greasy and there was bean sauce gathered at the corner of his mouth, trailing into his beard. He began to rise, reaching shakey hands across the table to clear my plate.
               'Don't, Dad, I'll do it.'
I stood and grabbed both plates and brought them to the sink as he slowly sat back down again.
               'Put the kettle on, will you?' His usual post-dinner refrain.
Water poured from the tap into the spout , splashing the dishes now piled in the sink, swirling in the grease of the pork fat.


God. Everything is still so vivid.


Later that evening we went out to the back yard and lit a fire. We lit it in the corner, by the compost bin, and the sweet smell of rotting fruit flesh mixed with the smoke, trundling into the sky.
               'She would have liked this.' He had said, shielding his eyes from the smoke.
               'Do you?' I asked, but my voice caught in my throat, barely reaching above a whisper.
He didn't seem to hear, threw a sod of turf on the fire.


We sat there for ages in the growing cold and I watched the fire fall lower, turn to embers, watched the gentle breeze pick up scraps of ash and carry them to heaven.
His eyes were closed, his lips moving slightly, but when I leaned in closer I couldn't hear anything.


How long did I stay? I hope long enough.


The moon had given up trying to push through the thick clouds, was now clothed in darkness, a faint yellow hum hanging above us.
               'I'm headin' off now.'
His eyes shot open.
               'Oh yeah...good lad. Thanks for coming. She'd have liked that.'
​

I left through the sidegate in the garden, did battle with the rusty bolt for a moment before escaping into a dark estate which sprawled down to the sea. 

 We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 3rd Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship is 
Alana Daly Mulligan.  Alana already has an impressive career, co-founding Europe’s first poetry festival organised by young people for young people (ages 13-19); The Lit Young Writers’ Festival (2017-present). She has written numerous short films to critical acclaim and her publications include; Autonomy (2018), Solstice Sounds Volume VI (2018), The Quarryman V (2019), University Express, Motley Magazine, and BND Magazine. Alana has also been included on a Spoken Word map of Ireland and the UK (2018). Alana has a strong reputation as a performance poet and has performed internationally at events like All Together Now, The First Fortnight Festival, Cúirt International Poetry Festival, Cork LGBT+ Pride Festival, The Belfast Poetry Festival, ME, USA, Three-Dot-Dash-Summit, NY, and has acted as support to Stephen James Smith, Neil Hilborn and Shane Koyczan.

This year the judges were particularly challenged to chose between the top three shortlisted poets. Our highly commended runners up are Joy Curtis and Lara Ní Chuirrín, both of whom have very impressive literary cvs so far and submitted beautiful writing samples.

We greatly look forward to seeing Alana, Joy and Lara perform at this year's tribute night in August. 

We would like to thank all students who took the time to enter the scholarship, and encourage those of you who did not succeed this year to enter again next year.  It is heartening for us to be able to award this scholarship in Eoin's memory.

We would also like to take this opportunity to extend again our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of you who donated time, money and effort to supporting this scholarship.  We know Eoin would be proud that this was happening in his name and we thank all of you who have contributed in so many ways in making this idea a reality.