Books

What Remains the Same was shortlisted for the 2025 Farmgate National Poetry Award. Exploring themes of memory, survival, and belonging, the collection traces journeys through personal and collective histories, confronting silence, loss, and resilience. Both tender and unsparing, these poems shed light on difficult experiences while offering hope and the possibility of renewal.

“it’s not very feminist to consider myself a mouldy slut
I’ve agency over my body and all that 21st-century shite”

A young woman wakes feeling raw and tender after a one-night stand. She leaves a strange man sleeping in her bed and goes running. Marked by the anxiety of living in a city that does not feel like home, she must face the memories and men kept under her bed.

Falling in love with broken things can be described as a coming-of-age narrative or Bildungsroman. Alive with crisp images, the poems range from childhood memories of freedom and enchantment to the uncertainties of adolescence and young adulthood. Unflinchingly, they look at early experiences of loss, at complex and ambivalent family relationships and the mysteries of love and heartbreak.

Please note that though this book is out of print, you may find copies online. It's a children's/YA novel.

Molly Darling wants life to be as simple as wellies and porridge - this is rural Ireland after all. Instead, Mum's hiding in the attic; Dad's run away, leaving only a PowerPoint to explain; her sister has a ham sandwich for a fiance; there's a boy and THE silence; her BFF will stop at nothing to go viral; and the chickens are missing. It's enough to make any girl cantankerous. But she'll fix it all. Easy, right?