Sarah Leech: The Outsider from the Fort of the Strangers (Dún na nGall)
Date: 28 September 2023
Venue: Tower Museum, Union Hall Pl, Londonderry, BT48 6LU
Sarah Leech was a 19th century Donegal poet who battled poverty, illness and discrimination to become the only known published Irish female weaver poet, and one of the most prominent of the Ulster-Scots tradition. Marginalised from the literary publishing world by gender and rural isolation, and isolated from her own society by religion and poverty, Leech’s voice soars across the centuries as she flashes between English and Ulster-Scots to create her own unique verse. Her depictions of 19th century Irish rural society are like opening a portal into history. Admission Free / Lunch Provided from 12:30pm Full programme at www.derrystrabane.com/islandvoices
Sarah Leech was a 19th century Donegal poet who battled poverty, illness and discrimination to become the only known published Irish
female weaver poet, and one of the most prominent of the Ulster-Scots tradition. Marginalised from the literary publishing world by gender and
rural isolation, and isolated from her own society by religion and poverty, Leech’s voice soars across the centuries as she flashes between English
and Ulster-Scots to create her own unique verse. Her depictions of 19th century Irish rural society are like opening a portal into history.
About the speaker:
Dr Pauline Holland is the author of Treasure Each Voice, a 400-page anthology of Irish, English and Ulster-Scots prose, poetry and song spanning the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It is the first work of its kind to provide a comprehensive anthology of the literature of the unique pluralist society of Ballybofey/Stranorlar and its hinterland. She was awarded her PhD, which featured ground-breaking research establishing Cavan poet Charlotte Brooke as the foundress of Anglo-Irish literature, from the University of Ulster; it has since been published by the British Library. She co-edited Sarah Leech: The Ulster-Scots Poet of Raphoe, Co.Donegal. Her play, Strangers to Our Own is based on the life of Sarah Leech andfeatures some of her original work.
Admission Free / Lunch Provided from 12:30pm
Full programme at www.derrystrabane.com/islandvoices