Breda Sullivan

Breda Sullivan

Breda Sullivan

Breda Sullivan

Breda Sullivan was born in Athlone in 1945. Having trained as a teacher she came to Streete on the Longford/Westmeath border at the age of twenty to take up a position in the local school. Marriage and children interrupted her writing career until 1987 when she joined the Granard Writers' Group.

Prizes soon followed for her poetry including awards in The Gerard Manley Poetry Competition in 1990 and 1992, The South Tipperary Literary Festival in 1991, the National Women's Poetry Competition in 1990 and the Syllables Poetry Competition shortly after.

Her debut collection, A Smell of Camphor, was published by Salmon Press in 1992. It was praised by, among others, Anthony Roche, who has published books on Irish drama and Anglo-Irish literature, saying:

Breda Sullivan's poems strike deep into memories, desires, fears and hopes; and are sharpened by them. Her poems are alert not only to what has happened but to what is lost in the experiences they articulate. They are braced by the shock of the physical… and the poems move from the domestic real to that imaginary which extends the real, expanding horizons for those who read them.

Other awards soon followed including that of the Kerry International Summer School (1995); Boyle Arts Festival (1996); The Edgeworth Prize; and the National Women's Poetry Competition (1998). Her second collection, After the Ball, was published by Salmon Press in 1998 and added to her reputation, in particular her ability to delve deeply into human experience with a spare, exacting grace, with her unobtrusive voice nonetheless making its point clearly. Again the collection received critical acclaim with Gabriel Rosenstock in The Poetry Supplement of Education Today praising her unique voice: Her poems ring perfectly true and clear; they are simple but well-wrought and linger long and profoundly in the mind. They do not say too much-clutter is the ruin of elegance.

Breda has also found the time to co-found the Edgeworth Literary Weekend which offers practical help to aspiring writers in the form of workshops, and also gives lectures on various literary topics past and present. She still lives in Streete with her husband and family and her third collection of poetry, Bog Cotton in the Winds is soon forthcoming from Salmon Poetry.

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