Caitríona Ní Chléirchín is a poet, lecturer, academic and critic in DCU. The author of a Ph.D. on contemporary poetry in Irish, she has published widely as a critic and co-edited the volume of Léachtaí Cholm Chille devoted to the Innti poets. She has also published four collections of poetry in Irish and is an award winning poet.The judges of the Michael Hartnett Award for Poetry in 2015 highlighted Caitríona Ní Chléirchín’s poetry as ‘powerful, courageous, sassy and important . . . Her mastery of Irish and sense of being at home in tradition and modernity is evident in poems set in the 17th century, poems framed by Gaelic mythology and in intensely personal lyrics. The poems are full of passion.’ Caitríona Ní Chléirchín’s romantic sensibility contrasts with the more urgent contemporary notes of the collection’s concluding series of outraged poems haunted by memories of border crossings near her home place. The Talk of the Town includes a generous and varied selection of her work with translations into English by Peter Fallon and offers evidence of a meeting of minds and common ground.

Is file, criticeoir agus léachtóir í Caitríona Ní Chléirchín. Is as Gort na Móna, Scairbh na gCaorach, Co. Mhuineacháin ó dhúchas í. Tá ceithre leabhar filíochta foilsithe aici. Bhuaigh a céad chnuasach Crithloinnir duais an Oireachtais don scríbhneoir úr i 2010 agus bhuaigh a dara cnuasach An Bhrídeach Sí (2014) duais Michael Hartnett i 2015. D'fhoilsigh The Gallery Press cnuasach nua léi  The Talk of the Town le haistriúcháin ó Peter Falllon le déanaí. Luadh a cnuasach Safó (Coiscéim, 2020) i measc ceann de na leabhair ab fhearr i 2020 ag Tuairisc.ie.  Chuir Mícheál Ó Ruairc síos uirthi mar ‘liriceoir nua an ghrá’ sa Ghaeilge. in Comhar Nollaig 2010. Chuir Liam Carson a saothar i gcomparáid le saothar an fhile cáiliúil Rúiseach Marina Tsvetaeva, ina léirmheas ar a céad chnuasach in Poetry Ireland Review 104, 2011, ‘...there are more than a few echoes...of the spectral romanticism of the Russian Silver age’.