Paula Meehan

Paula Meehan was born and raised in Dublin’s north inner city. Her award-winning poetry has garnered widespread popular and critical acclaim. Her poetry has been scored for choirs, for solo voice and made into songs by artists from divers traditions — the folk, including the legendary Christy Moore, and the avant garde. Poems have been made into short films; have been danced; are studied at Leaving Certificate level and at home & abroad in schools, universities and other settings. 

Her work has been translated into many languages including most recently Japanese, Dutch, Italian. Books are in progress in Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek. She received the XXI International Prize for Civil Poetry at Vercelli, Italy, in 2025. She was Ireland Professor of Poetry 2013–2016 and Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them, her public lectures from the Chair, are published by UCD Press.

Recent publications include As If By Magic: Selected Poems, and The Solace of Artemis which received the 2024 Pigott Prize for Poetry. They are published by Dedalus Press, Dublin. Seven Last Words,is a new text to accompany Josef Hadyn’s 1786 work was commissioned for the 2025 Bantry International Chamber Music Festival and premiered there by the Chiaroscura String Quartet.

She was elected a member of Aosdána, the Irish affiliation of creative artists in 1996. She was conferred with an honorary doctorate in Philosophy by Dublin City University, she is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Hibernian Academy.