Tag: Nature

Writing Awards, Writing Life, Writing News

Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig

I was honoured to have been awarded the Jack Harte Bursary 2025 for professional writers and am delighted to report that I had a most wonderful productive week of writing at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig.

To have an entire week free from everyday obligations and distractions, a week dedicated to thinking and talking about writing…and in gorgeous surrounds, with delicious and healthy food, and to be able to engage in new writing and editing is such a rarity. It was great also to connect with other creatives in a variety of disciplines, and an honour to visit some of the visual artists in their studios and see stunning work in progress. I am most grateful to Jack Harte, The Irish Writers Centre and Anna and her team at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig for this award – the gift of a week immersed in creativity.

Below are a few photos from walks around the house, grounds, and lake.

Photograph of the bell, wall, and flowers at the entrance to the house, the name plate to the fore. Photograph by Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.
Photograph of the house in the evening – with some lights on in the house and grass to the fore. Photograph by Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.
Photograph of the hallway and stairs through the mirror with a beautiful green house plant to the fore. Photograph by Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.
Close up of a yellow (sun) flower in bloom in the gardens of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. Photograph by Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.
View of the beautiful Annaghmakerrig Lake from just outside the house Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.
A glimpse of some of the treasures in the Tyrone Guthrie library, a beautiful room which overlooks the lake. Photograph by Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.
Close up of lilac foxglove. Photograph by Shauna Gilligan (c) 2025.

Contemplation

Rest, Reset, Renew: the creative self

Photograph of Killarney Lakes, Killarney National Park, County Kerry (c) Shauna Gilligan

Flannery O’Connor states in her wonderful essay “The Nature and Aim of Fiction”,

Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.

And it strikes me that the dust and muck still stick even after the drafts of fiction have been written. Perhaps it’s only by getting out into the air, feeling the cold, and the wind, and seeing all the mess and the beauty that surround us that we can begin to see, really see, what is there in our creative space.

Julia Cameron maintains that “art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself.” And incubation takes time, energy, and space. We need to rest, reset and renew ourselves and our energy so that our creative selves can be open enough to let our creations emerge. It is only then we can accept – and then fine tune – the manuscript that sits before us.

Contemplation, Writing Life

The Light still gets through

Sometimes to find the light we just need to pause and look outwards.

Sometimes it is the underneath or the other side where the brightness sits.

Sometimes it is the detail of beauty in the weeds shining in the mist.