This residency is offered to a writer based in Scotland who may not yet have published a work but demonstrates exceptional promise. It is an opportunity to develop a work in progress and to meet and work alongside established artists across all disciplines.

Conor Cleary is a writer from Tralee, Co. Kerry and lives in Glasgow. He has an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University Belfast where he was the recipient of the 2016 Seamus Heaney Centre MA Award. In 2018, he won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. His work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Tangerine, The Stinging Fly and Virginia Quarterly Review. His debut poetry pamphlet will be published by The Emma Press in 2019. During his residency at Cove Park, he will work on a collection of poems about the village of Blennerville which was an important port for emigrants during the Great Famine in Ireland.

Read one of Conor’s poems here.