The Ireland Chair of Poetry was set up after Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. Every three years an Irish poet is chosen to represent the Chair as Ireland’s Professor of Poetry. What does it mean to sit in “the chair”? Is it like being a Poet Laureate, or something totally different?
Earlier this year two former holders of the position, Michael Longley and Harry Clifton – plus the current incumbent Paula Meehan – talked to Arminta Wallace about the duties and responsibilities of the role. The three professors came together again at a 2015 Dublin Books Festival live event, where they also read a selection of their poems.
