We're saddened to hear that one of Ireland’s most distinguished poets, Eavan Boland has died suddenly at the age of 75 from a stroke. Her work redefined Irish poetry, as Boland remarked in an interview in 2000, "women are now writing the Irish poem across a very big register of new tones, new subjects, new approaches... I think I was one of the poets who became convinced of the need for change".
Born in Dublin in 1944, Eavan Boland studied in Ireland, London and New York. Her first book was published in 1967. She has taught at Trinity College, University College and Bowdoin College Dublin, and at the University of Iowa. She was Mabury Knapp Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, California. A pioneering figure in Irish poetry, Boland's works include The Journey and other poems (1987), Night Feed (1994), The Lost Land (1998), Code (2001) and A Woman Without A Country (2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Kenyon Review and American Poetry Review. She was a regular reviewer for the Irish Times. She divided her time between California and Dublin where she lives with her husband, the novelist Kevin Casey. Eavan died in Dublin on 27th April 2020.