About Moya Cannon

Moya Cannon was born and grew up in Dunfanaghy, Co. Donegal . The dramatic mountains and coasts of her native county inspired her early poetry. After studying history and politics at University College, Dublin, she helped to set up a Gaelscoil in Dublin before undertaking a graduate degree in International Relations at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Her preoccupation with poetry overtook her interest in history and she settled to a teaching career which would leave time for writing.

Galway was home for almost thirty years and many poems reflect the experiences of the West – its exposed mountains, the Gaelic culture of the islands, the quiet places of Clare. Traditional music has been a central focus and she has often given readings with musicians and singers, among them the harper Kathleen Loughnane, the traditional singers Maıghréad and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaıll and the RTE Con Tempo String Quartet.

After publication of her second book, she was elected to Aosdána, which allowed her to give up full-time teaching. She has been editor of Poetry Ireland Review and Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University. For many years she co-directed a summer course in creative writing in the National University of Ireland, Galway. Dublin is now her home.

Her latest Book, ‘Bunting’s Honey’, reflects her deep interest in music and history. Art, including prehistoric art, and other aspects of the ancient past continue to inform her work. Walks among the mountains and shores of Clare, Conamara , the Aran Islands and Wicklow provide inspiration for many of the poems. Other poems have been sparked by visits to places further afield, from the island of Torcello in Venice to a sacred lake in China. A major preoccupation is our evolving relationship with earth and seas through time and a concern with the effect of the human footprint on our beautiful planet.

In 1990, her first book (Oar, Salmon Press, Galway) won the Brendan Behan Award for the best first collection of poetry published in Ireland in the previous year. It was subsequently republished by Poolbeg Press and Gallery Press. She has since published six further collections. In 2001 she received the O’Shaughnessy Award from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Her 2011 collection, Hands, was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Prize. Her Collected Poems was published by Carcanet Press in February, 2021. Bunting’s Honey, (Carcanet, 2025), was among Guardian’s ‘best recent poetry’ collections and received a UK Poetry Book Society recommendation. No Todo Termina en un Libro, a bilingual selection of poems with Spanish translations by Jorge Fondebrider, Florencia Fragasso and Julian Massaldi, was published by Ediciones Gog Y Magog, Buenos Aires (2025).