Nessa O'Mahony

Life and work

Born in Dublin, she was educated in St Louis High School before going on to University College Dublin to study English. She was a recipient of the Mary Colum Award for being the highest placed female student in English Literature for the BA in 1984. O'Mahony worked as a journalist in RTE Aertel and Lafferty Publications, before switching to public relations with roles in the Irish Insurance Federation and the Arts Council, where she was Head of Public Affairs (1999-2002). She began writing poetry in 1994. She published her first collection of poems, Bar Talk, in 1999, and was a regular presenter on the radio show Writers Inc. Anna Livia FM from 1997 to 1999. She returned to full-time education in 2002, completing a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (2003) and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Wales Bangor in 2006.

Since then she has won awards for her poetry, worked as assistant Editor of UK literary journal Orbis, tutors for the Open Education department at Dublin City University and teaches workshops on poetry and writing through a number of venues including the Open University.

Her works have been translated into several languages and published across the world. She lives in Rathfarnham.

Awards and bursaries

Criticism

Novelist Joseph O'Connor (In Sight of Home) :

‘a moving, powerful and richly pleasurable read, audaciously imagined and achieved’

Poet Tess Gallagher (Her Father’s Daughter) :

‘words are her witching sticks and she employs them with beautiful, engaging intent, the better to make present what has preceded and what approaches.’