Join us as at The James Joyce Centre on Satuday, June 14th at 2pm for an afternoon of poetry featuring two contemporary Irish authors from Macha Press, a new publisher dedicated to marginal, experimental and interdisciplinary works.

Eilish Martin’s third collection, ! All’arme / ? And what… if not, is an experimental head-to-toe double book which can be read from either end. It investigates human frailty and the minutiae of the natural world.

Crowd Work is Sam Furlong’s debut poetry collection. It explores experiences of a body’s qualities of pain, the complexities and contradictions of intimacy, and an interrogation of the performative side of identity in stand-up’s public setting.

Macha Press was recently founded by seven poets, each with manifold areas of practice. All the founders are currently based on the island of Ireland but each has a visionary reach that is integral to the international and trans-generational character of Macha. The name resounds with the eponymous (and pregnant) goddess who runs through the Ulster Cycle; Scottish makar (poet); as well as the Irish and Scottish Gaelic for a geographic “plain”. The word “macha” has different meanings across cultures and languages that play on tropes of both fertility and power.

The event will feature readings by Martin and Furlong and a Q&A.

Tickets are €10.

Recently founded by seven poets based on the island of Ireland, Macha Press is dedicated to work that is experimental, hybrid or interdisciplinary.

Crowd Work (2025) by Dublin writer Sam Furlong explores the body, intimacy and identity, while Morsels (2025) by Belfast poet Susanna Galbraith forays into love, anxiety, transformation and the craft of poetry.

Join Sam and Susanna for an evening of readings and discussion. 

Susanna Galbraith is a poet from Belfast. She studied English at Trinity College Dublin and Art History at the University of York, where she focused on modern and contemporary art. She has a particular interest in areas where literature and visual art overlap and interact. Her recent poems have appeared in New England Review, Berlin Lit, Propel Magazine and others. She is an editor of Abridged magazine.

Sam Furlong is a writer from Dublin who works across genres. They completed an MA in Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, where they were awarded the Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award in 2023. Their writing has appeared in publications including Banshee, Abridged, Propel, Catflap, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Pig’s Back. They have been selected for the National Mentorship Programme and Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series, and read alongside Stephen Rea and Paula Meehan at the Abbey Theatre’s Now We Must Sing: Celebrating WB Yeats. At present, they are developing a short story collection supported by both an Agility Award and The Stinging Fly workshop scholarship and are Poetry Editor of Frustrated Writers’ Group.

CROWD WORK: Sam Furlong

Presented in association with Poetry Ireland

Wednesday, May 28, 6:30 pm

Irish Writers Centre

Crowd Work is the venturous debut by writer Sam Furlong. From densely sculpted sonnets to capacious prose forms and ekphrasis, Furlong’s uses of image and tonal variation interweave voyeurism with masochisms and transfiguration. Re- making forms, it renders explicit the means by which ‘Through breaking, we are made’.

Join Macha Press to celebrate the publication of Crowd Work, with readings by Sam Furlong & Eilish Martin.

CROWD WORK: Sam Furlong

Thursday, May 15, 7:00 pm

Ulster University Art Gallery Block BC, York Street, Belfast City Campus

Crowd Work is the venturous debut by writer Sam Furlong. From densely sculpted sonnets to capacious prose forms and ekphrasis, Furlong’s uses of image and tonal variation interweave voyeurism with masochisms and transfiguration. Re- making forms, it renders explicit the means by which ‘Through breaking, we are made’.

Join Macha Press to celebrate the publication of Crowd Work, with a reading by Sam Furlong.

New Voices, New Work from Macha & Revival Press

Sam Furlong, Eilish Martin & Bernadette Gallagher present new work.

Venue : Stables

Time : 12:15

Ticket Price : €8.00

Diversity in the Arts Today: with contemporary artist Jesse Jones, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe (Skein Press) and Alanna Offield (Macha Press). In conversation with Sarah Harte

Diversity in the arts today in Ireland has so much to teach us. Some of the most active proponents at the vanguard of diversity join us today for what promises to be a challenging and inclusive debate about where we are today and where we can grow.

Artist in Residence for the King’s Inn Society of Ireland, Jesse Jones proposes a re-imagining of the relationship between the Law and the body through speculative feminism. Working across film, performance, installation, and community-arts activism, Jesse has represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale, and has shown at ICA Singapore and Guggenheim Bilbao.

Skein Press are a writer-centred publishing house supporting traditionally underrepresented voices in Irish literature and have curated and championed some of the most thought-provoking stories to be held in reader’s hands today. With programmes such as their Play it Forward Fellowships, they are persistently broadening conversations around diversity, inclusion, access and opportunity across the literary landscape.

Recently founded by seven poets, Macha Press work as a collective endeavour and actively challenge dichotomous and binary modes of thinking. All the founders are currently based on the island of Ireland, though each has a visionary reach that is integral to the international and trans-generational character of Macha. They promote the appreciation, performance and recognition of the endeavour of both emerging and recovered poets to the local community and beyond.

Wednesday 23 April 2025

City Library | 6.30pm | Free

Join us for an evening of poetry featuring the first two authors published by Macha Press, a new publisher dedicated to marginal, experimental, and interdisciplinary works.

Eilish Martin’s third collection, titled ! All’arme / ? And what… if not, is composed of two experimental poetic works and designed as a ‘head-to-tail’ book which can be read from either end.

Sam Furlong is a writer from Dublin. Their first book Crowd Work (forthcoming in May 2025) showcases a new voice on the Irish poetry scene.

Thursday October 17th, 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Rear Foyer, School of Art at Ulster University

Level 00 Birley Building Block BA

York Street, Belfast City Campus

!  All’arme / ?  And what… if not

by Eilish Martin

Thursday, October 17th, 6:00 – 7:00 pm

Ulster University Art Gallery, Block BC

York Street, Belfast City Campus