Banshee Press: Independent, Innovative, and Irish
Enjoy readings and a panel conversation with three writers from Banshee Press, Ireland's award-winning independent publisher.
WHEN: Thursday, May 21 | 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Madhatter (1319 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC)
TICKETS: Free with reservation
Join Solas Nua and Georgetown University's Global Irish Studies for a series of eclectic readings by three acclaimed Irish writers. After the readings, Dr. Cóilín Parsons (Director of Georgetown University's Global Irish Studies and Solas Nua Board Member) will moderate a panel discussion.
Bebe Ashley's Harbour Doubts was featured as part of Solas Nua's Irish Book Day, and has been described as "a feeling-full exploration of language as a poultice, if not an entire remedy, to loneliness."
Eimear Ryan's award-winning memoir The Grass Ceiling brings the reader into the world of camogie, and was hailed as "A book which will very soon be acknowledged as a classic of Irish sportswriting."
Jessica Trayor's New Arcana, praised as "inventive and visceral" and "desperately tender" is a hymn to the loss of a friend told through the lens of Tarot and Tim Burton, and is currently shortlisted for the Pigott Prize.
Each of these writers are connected by their work with Banshee Press, an innovative Irish Indie Press publishing the best in new Irish writing. Don't miss this opportunity to gain an up to the minute insight into the Irish literary scene.
Bebe Ashley lives in Northern Ireland and works at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. Her debut collection Gold Light Shining (Banshee Press, 2020) was selected for the Arts Council’s Read Mór programme in 2022. Her work is most recently published in Granta, The Stinging Fly, bath magg, and Modern Poetry in Translation. In 2023, Bebe received the Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment (Text) and in 2024, she received a British Council Fellowship.
Author photoby Matthew Thompson
Eimear Ryan, the Managing Editor of Banshee Press, is the author of the novel Holding Her Breath (Sandycove 2021, Mariner Books 2022) and the memoir The Grass Ceiling: On Being a Woman in Sport (Sandycove 2023), which won Sports Book of the Year at the 2023 Irish Book Awards. She has also been shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Awards, the Kate O’Brien Award, and the John McGahern Annual Book Prize. Other writing has appeared in Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review and The Stinging Fly. From Co. Tipperary, she now lives in Cork city, where she lectures in creative writing at University College Cork.
Jessica Traynor, the Poetry Editor at Banshee Press, is a poet, essayist and librettist. Her debut collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times book of the year. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and a Guardian Best Summer Read of 2022. She was the 2023 recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. Other awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Prize, the Listowel Poetry Prize, and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. A new collection, New Arcana, is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books in 2025.
About Banshee Press
Banshee Press is a small independent Irish publisher, founded in 2015 and currently run by award-winning writers Eimear Ryan and Jessica Traynor. To date the press has published ten books of fiction. Our authors include Bebe Ashley, Dylan Brennan, Lucy Sweeney Byrne, Gustav Parker Hibbett, Claire-Lise Kieffer, Tim MacGabhann, Mary Morrissy, Billy Ramsell, Deirdre Sullivan, Rosamund Taylor and David Toms. We have recently celebrated our tenth anniversary, and the 20th issue of our diverse literary journal Banshee, which published flash fiction, poetry, flash fiction and essays.
In 2024 and 2025, Banshee Press was selected as the island of Ireland winner in the Small Press of the Year Award at the Nibbies, The Bookseller’s annual publishing awards. Banshee Press authors have recently been listed for or won such awards as the Edge Hill Prize, the Kate O'Brien Award, the Butler Literary Award, the John McGahern Annual Book Prize, the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize, the Polari First Book Prize, the Ivan Juritz Prize, the Laurel Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the John Pollard International Poetry Prize.
About Georgetown Global Irish Studies
Global Irish Studies at Georgetown University (GIS), which is supported by the Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences, builds on a long tradition of Irish and Irish-American involvement at Georgetown University. GIS has three core aims: engaging the community; inspiring students; and developing research. By staging timely and meaningful public events, supporting innovative teaching, and facilitating student and faculty research, GIS hopes to build the most exciting Irish Studies program in North America.
Given both its Irish heritage and its global outlook, Georgetown University is the perfect home for a new kind of Irish Studies–one that looks at Ireland in comparative perspective, understanding it as a place from which to ask probing questions about the world we live in today.
