Catherine Phil MacCarthy

Catherine Phil MacCarthy was born in Co. Limerick, in 1954 and educated at University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, and Central School of Speech and Drama, London.

Her collections include How High the Moon (Poetry Ireland, Sense of Place Award, 1991, a joint book); This Hour of the Tide (Salmon, 1994); the blue globe (1998), Suntrap (2007), and a first novel, One Room an Everywhere (2003), with Blackstaff Press. Prizes and honours include a bursary in poetry from the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealíon in 1994, 1999, and 2007/8. She was Writer in Residence for Dublin City, (1994), University College Dublin (2002), and leads workshops at the Irish Writers Centre.

About MacCarthy, the poet Eamon Grennan has said, “her poems reveal an imagination aware of the strength and delicacy of the body as well as how mind and body are in endless, responsive dialogue with each other.” Catherine Phil MacCarthy lives in Dublin.

Suntrap, image courtesy of Blackstaff Press

Suntrap

The suntrap in the title poem of Catherine Phil MacCarthy’s long-awaited third collection is a magnifying glass through which a young girl is shown for the first time ‘how to burn’.

Selected Poems

The First Rod

Sweet Afton

Suntrap

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