'Strabane - Blessing a Town into Poetry' features in Island Voices lecture

THE town of Strabane will be lauded by poet, Maureen Boyle, during a literary lunchtime lecture in the Tower Museum as part of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Island Voices programme.

This year the Island Voices lectures are exploring the theme of ‘home’ in the work of local writers from the English, Irish and Ulster-Scots traditions.

Island Voices features talks by Belfast-born, Réaltán Ní Leannáin, Maureen Boyle from Sion Mills and Alan Millar, from the Laggan Valley in East Donegal, the series explores identity and belonging within the context of our shared languages of English, Irish and Ulster-Scots.

Irish Language writer, Réaltán Ní Leannáin, opened the series with a lecture entitled, ‘From Burgu to Belfast’.

The next lecture tomorrow (Thursday), October 24, will feature Sion writer Maureen Boyle speaking about ‘Writing ‘Strabane’ - Blessing a Town Into Poetry.'

In 2018 Maureen was commissioned by Radio 4 to write a poem on her family’s hometown for a series called ‘Conversations on a Bench’.

Growing up in the village of Sion Mills, it was the nearby town of Strabane which captured Maureen’s imagination.

It was where her father had grown up, and her family later moved into the town.

Every aspect of Maureen’s childhood memories are recalled in the poem - from the congested lungs of the mill workers to the smoky smell of her father’s bomb damage sale jackets in the family wardrobe.

In this talk, Maureen will explore the process of the poem’s creation, the motivation to write it, the research involved and the process of translating research into poetry.

An acclaimed poet Maureen won a UNESCO medal for a book of poems in 1979 at the age of 18.

She has also won various awards including the Ireland Chair of Poetry Prize, the Strokestown International Poetry Prize, the Fish Short Memoir Prize, the Inaugural Ireland Chair of Poetry Travel Bursary and Awards from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Commissions include one to write a poem on the Crown Bar in Belfast for the BBC in 2008 and for a poem on a painting in the O’Brien Collection in Washington.

Some of her work has been translated into German, Flemish and French.

Those who attend Maureen’s lecture will get a unique insight into the enduring impact the poet’s hometown of Strabane has had on her life.

The final lecture in the series features Alan Millar with his talk ‘Hame an awa – Scots wurds in Irish toonlands’.

It will take place on Thursday, November 28.

All talks in the series are free but booking is essential.

Each one will begin at 1pm and there are light refreshments available from 12.30pm.

To book your place, contact the Tower Museum on 028 71372411 or email tower@derrystrabane.com

For further information, contact Pól Ó Frighil, Languages Team, Derry City and Strabane District Council, via email:

pol.ofrighil@derrystrabane.com