Public Call: Lianne O’Hara, Poet
Grangegorman Histories issued a public call in July 2023 inviting applicants to contribute to the uncovering, cataloguing and commemorating of the History of the Grangegorman site. The five successful awardees have received funding to develop their work through research and creative endeavors. Here we’re profiling the work of Poet, Lianne O’Hara.
About the project
Lianne is creating a series of twenty original poems documenting and retelling the lives and experiences of patients and staff at the former psychiatric hospital.
About the poet
Poet Lianne O’Hara has a longstanding academic and artistic interest in history and experiences of institutionalisation. Playwright and poetry have become Lianne’s mediums of expression and through the lens of archival material and interviewing. An example of this is her poem ‘Patient F’, commissioned as part of The Bohemian Way, which records the experience of a female patient in Grangegorman Mental Hospital. Lianne’s writing is published extensively, and her work is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. She teaches creative writing at University College Dublin and is represented by Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White.
Find out more
In 2025 Lianne will publish her poetry as a book and ebook.
In May 2024, as part of Phizzfest, Lianne gave a poetry reading of her newly commissioned works for Grangegorman Histories, titled ‘The Patients All Seemed Happy’ in Doyles Corner, Phibsboro.
In October 2024, as part of the Dublin Festival of History, Lianne read some of her poetry at a Storytelling event. Read more about the event here.
