New writers' centre named after poet

The Galway Writers' Centre project has been granted permission to call its proposed centre after one of Galway and Connemara's best-known and loved poets. It will be the Caitlin Maude Writers' Centre, Galway - Ionad Schribhneoiri Chaitlin Maude, Gaillimh.

Those in the project are delighted that an Irish-language poet who was also active in Connemara politics will be commemorated in this way. Caitlin Maude was born in 1941 in Casla, Co Galway, and educated at NUI Galway. She taught in Ireland and London and acted with An Taibhdhearc in Galway and later in the role of Maire in Mairead Ni Ghrada's An Triail (1964).

She recorded an album of sean-nos singing on the Gael Linn label in 1965 and collaborated with the late Michael Hartnett on a play. She is best remembered, however, for her poetry. Danta was published posthumously in 1985 - Maude died tragically young in 1982. Committed to Irish language and culture, she took part in the civil rights movements of the 1970s and supported the hunger-strikers at Long Kesh. She wrote an elegy on the death of Bobby Sands in 1981.

The notion of a Galway Writers' Centre arose as a development of the project of literary officer at Galway Centre for the Unemployed, a post occupied by Fred Johnston, novelist and founder of Galway's annual literature festival, Cuirt, initiated as a poetry festival in 1986.

When asked why they decided to name the centre after this particular writer, Mr Johnston explained: "I was always fascinated by her, the fact that she was a singer and actress as well as a writer and political activist. And because so many people in Galway knew her and still remember her, even though she is dead since the 1980s."

The sub-committee for the writers' centre project includes Dublin-born poet Nuala Ni Chonchuir, recent winner of the Cathal Bui short story competition, and poet and co-founder of the magazine, The Burning Bush, Kevin Higgins.

The sub-committee is especially thankful for the interest shown by Mr Eamon O Cuiv TD.

The members are trying to source funding and sponsorship for the centre project from a variety of sources, including Galway Corporation and County Council, Galway City Partnership and the Arts Council.

The proposed centre will be the first in Galway and will have a brief to cover Galway city and county and to provide an information service and outreach service for creative literary activities, amateur and professional, in Irish as well as English.