Program Overview

The University of Limerick offers a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. Our Chair of Creative Writing is Joseph O’Connor (author of ten novels including Ghost Light, the million-selling Star of the Sea, Shadowplay, winner of the Novel of the Year Award at the 2019 Irish Book Awards, shortlisted for the UK's prestigious Costa Novel Award, 2020, My Father’s House and The Ghosts of Rome). Our outstanding teachers include multiple award-winning, twice Booker-Prize-longlisted Donal Ryan, (author of The Spinning Heart, From a Low and Quiet Sea, Strange Flowers and Heart, Be at Peace), Irish Book Award nominees Prof Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (The Apple Tart of Hope and A Strange Kind of Brave) and Prof Eoin Devereux, and our acclaimed Meskell UL Fifty Poet in Residence, Dr Emily Cullen. Adjunct Professor Kit deWaal (My Name is Leon) is an important advisory member of the team and offers occasional masterclasses on our MA.

Our Creative Writing students enjoy teaching-visits and readings from outstanding contemporary authors. Visitors to UL Creative Writing have included Louise O’Neill, Claire Keegan, Melatu Uche Okorie, Colin Barrett, Roddy Doyle, Anna Carey, Paul Lynch, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Sarah Davis-Goff, John Boyne, Fiona Scarlett and Sarah Gilmartin, Louise Kennedy, Kevin Barry, Mary O’Malley, Sara Baume, Liz Nugent, Marian Keyes, Sinead Gleeson, Niamh Mulvey, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford and Laureates for Irish Fiction Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry and Colm Toibín.

For dissertation, recent students have offered work across a range of creative genres, from memoir to short stories, chapters of novels, collections of poems and song lyrics. Our Creative Writing student cohort is always diverse and has attracted students from the United States, Puerto Rico, Australia, Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK as well as wider Europe and Ireland. Mature students are always a very welcome part of our MA class.

Local literary attractions include the Limerick Literary Weekend in Honour of Kate O’Brien; the Doolin Writers’ Weekend, the Eigse Michael Hartnett Poetry Arts and Literary Festival; Cuisle, the Limerick International Poetry Festival, the Ennis Book Clubs Festival, the world-famous Listowel Writers' Week in north County Kerry, and our own UL Creative Writing Festival, programmed by Prof Joseph O’Connor.

In addition to our very high-level teaching and our excellent Faculty, a unique aspect of our MA in Creative Writing programme is that it provides students with practical experience in working with community groups, learning marketable skills and applying them to projects that will be impactful in community settings. This is facilitated through our Creative Writers in the Community modules offered in Autumn and Spring semesters. Normally, you’ll form a partnership (with one other student) or a team (with several other students) and will research, develop, design (semester 1) and implement and deliver (semester 2) a community project in collaboration with community groups under the guidance of Faculty. Projects might include working with students in primary or secondary school settings, engaging with writing festivals, writing organisations and other groups, organising and hosting open mic events or completing a feasibility study.