Creative Writing
Professor Joseph O'Connor
Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing
Novelist, screenwriter, playwright and broadcaster, Joseph O'Connor is the author of nine novels including Star of the Sea, Ghost Light (Dublin One City One Book novel 2011) and Shadowplay (June 2019). Among his awards are the Prix Zepter for European Novel of the Year, France's Prix Millepages, Italy's Premio Acerbi, an American Library Association Award and the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature. His work has been translated into forty languages. In 2014 he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. Twice-Booker Prize-winner Peter Carey has written, ‘There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O'Connor is a wonder, and Shadowplay is a triumph.’
Donal Ryan
Lecturer in Creative Writing
Donal Ryan is the author of four bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won numerous awards, among them the European Union Prize for Literature, The Guardian First Book Award and three Irish Book Awards. He was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for From A Low And Quiet Sea. His work has been adapted for stage and screen, and The Spinning Heart is a set text on the Leaving Certificate syllabus and in 2016 was voted Irish Book of the Decade in a nationwide poll run by Dublin Book Festival.
Professor Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Prof of pedagogy
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Sarah is professor of pedagogy and an award-winning teacher at the University of Limerick with a particular interest in creativity. She has researched extensively on the writing process across a range of contexts and uses her training in psychology and pedagogy to shed light on how writers can nourish and develop their practice. Also an author, her first novel, Back to Blackbrick was published in 2013 and adapted for the stage at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Arts Theatre in London’s West End. Her second novel, The Apple Tart of Hope, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Prize and her latest, A Strange Kind of Brave, was shortlisted in the 2019 Irish Book Awards. Her fiction has been translated into over sixteen languages, and in 2016 she was winner of the Irish Writers’ Centre’s Jack Harte Award. She is part of the creative writing team at UL and is programme founder and director of UL’s Creative Writing Winter School
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Dr Gavin McCrea
UL Writer in Residence 2020
Gavin McCrea holds a BA and an MA from University College Dublin, and an MA and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. His first novel, Mrs Engels was published in 2015, and his second, The Sisters Mao, comes out in Spring 2021. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Limerick.
Rob Doyle
Kate O'Brien creative writing doctoral fellow at UL
Rob Doyle is a writer from Dublin. His first novel, Here Are the Young Men, was published in 2014 by Bloomsbury and the Lilliput Press. It was selected as one of Hot Press magazine’s ‘20 Greatest Irish Novels 1916-2016’, and has been made into a film. Rob’s second book, This is the Ritual, was published in 2016 to widespread acclaim. He is the editor of the anthology The Other Irish Tradition (Dalkey Archive Press), and In This Skull Hotel Where I Never Sleep (Broken Dimanche Press). He has written for the Guardian, TLS, Vice, Sunday Times, Dublin Review, Observer and many other publications, and he writes a weekly books column for the Irish Times. Rob Doyle’s new novel, Threshold,was published by Bloomsbury in January 2020.
Professor Eoin Devereux
Professor in Sociology, University of Limerick and Professor of Contemporary Culture, University of Jyvasklya, Finland.
Eoin Devereux writes poetry and short fiction.  His work has been broadcast by RTE Radio 1’s Poetry Programme; The Bookshow on One and Sunday Miscellany. Hennessy New Irish Writing published his poem ‘The Bodhi Tree’ in 2017 and it was subsequently shortlisted for a Hennessy Award. His short fiction has appeared in The Irish Times and on RTE Radio. Eoin’s work has been published in Southwords, The Ogham Stone; Boyne Berries; Number Eleven; The Bohemyth; The HCE Review and The Galway Review. A member of the WritePace Co-operative, Eoin co-organises the UL Winter School in Creative Writing with Professor Sarah Moore and lectures at the UL Frank McCourt Summer School in Creative Writing at NYU. Eoin has collaborated with singer Gavin Friday to record The Fall song ‘Slags, Slates, Slags etc.’ He has written extended sleevenotes for the re-issued versions of The Cranberries’ albums ‘Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?’ (Universal Island, 2018) and ‘No Need To Argue’ (Universal Island, 2020).
What's on
Creative Writing at UL hosts, promotes and supports a range of local, national and international events, publications and graduate achievements. Check back here for regular updates
About Creative Writing at the University of Limerick
At UL all our creative writing programmes are carefully designed to support the best kind of learning and development - taught by active creative writers who are also experienced teachers.
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Get in Touch
We’d love to hear from you! If you're interested in making contact this Spring, please email Sarah Moore with any questions, or queries about our programmes
University of Limerick, Limerick
Corona Virus Update
March 12 2020
The University of Limerick campus is closed until after March 29th in line with Ireland's National Corona Virus prevention measures. We have a full set of arrangements in place for current students to ensure continuity of learning and tuition.
