This year’s Féile Raifteirí Poetry Competition unfolded in Loughrea as a quiet gathering of voices shaped by the Irish language. Organised by Gaeilge Loch Riach, the event formed part of the annual festival dedicated to the poet Raifteirí, whose words still echo through the landscape that inspired him.
The competition brought together writers, students and teachers, each finding their own way to answer the theme “Who are you?”. In classrooms, children recited verses they had learned by heart, while others wrote new poems that carried traces of family, place and imagination. Adult poets sent in original works, all written in Irish, each line a personal reflection on identity and belonging.
A special guest at the event was Eoin McEvoy (UCD). He is known as an educational technologist in the UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, fluent in Irish, and active in promoting Irish-language arts.
During the award ceremony in Loughrea, the winning poems were read aloud in front of an audience that listened with a kind of shared attention, one that belongs to language more than to performance. The festival did not feel grand or formal, but rather like a continuation of something that has always existed: people speaking through poetry in the language that holds their memories.
Féile Raifteirí remains less about competition and more about connection. It reminds those who take part that Irish is not only a language to preserve but a way of seeing, and that poetry can still make that vision visible.
Between me and the skin of your ear
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