Join poet Martina Evans for a special Bealtaine workshop for older adults, taking place in the Courtyard Workshop Studio at the National Museum of Ireland in Turlough Park, Castlebar, at 2pm on Friday, 2 May 2025.

Bealtaine is an annual arts festival that takes place throughout the month of May to celebrate creativity as we age.

This poetry workshop is titled ‘I Ran Through Briars’. It will look at memories and explore themes of youth, change, leaving and work. 

The workshop is organised in association with the project OnSight 2024-25: Silent Objects/Spoken Lives.

Martina Evans is one of three participating poets involved in Onsight 2024-25 - a joint arts initiative by Mayo County Council Arts Service, the National Museum of Ireland and Poetry Ireland.

'I Ran Through Briars’ is a free workshop but places are limited and booking is required. For bookings, please email mayoarts@mayococo.ie.

About Martina Evans

Martina Evans was born in Cork and lives in London. She is the author of 13 books of poetry and prose. Her latest narrative poem, The Coming Thing (Carcanet 2023) is shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. She is poetry critic for The Irish Times and a Fellow of Royal Society of Literature.

Speaking on her involvement in OnSight 2024-25: Silent Objects/Spoken Lives, Martina says:

"I feel extremely privileged to be chosen for this commission which allows me the time and opportunity to engage fully with the rich array of artefacts in the Country Life museum. I hope to transfer the stored magic of these objects into living poems which will enhance the readers vicarious experience of the past, releasing a dynamic sense of the lives of the people who worked with them.”