Paul Muldoon: A History of Ireland in 12 Poems

Through the prism of his own poems, Paul Muldoon will offer a brief survey of Irish history from earliest times to the present day. This illustrated lecture will feature poems on the Vikings, the Normans, the English, the Troubles of the second half of the 20th century, as well as more recent events in Ireland.

Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh in 1951. He now lives in New York. A former radio and television producer for the BBC in Belfast, he taught at Princeton University for thirty-five years. He is the author of fifteen collections of poetry including Joy in Service on Rue Tagore, a New York Times Notable Book of 2024. Among his awards are the 1972 Eric Gregory Award, the 1980 Sir Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2006 European Prize for Poetry, the 2015 Pigott Poetry Prize, the 2017 Queens Gold Medal for Poetry, and the 2020 Michael Marks Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2024 Paul was elected a ‘Saoi of Aosdana’, an Irish fellowship of artists – the highest honour that an artist in Ireland can ever have bestowed upon them.