Winners of 2020 Trochaire Poetry Ireland competition announced

This year's winner in the adult published category, Cliona O'Connell. Image: Garry Walsh.

Source: Trócaire

Trócaire and Poetry Ireland have announce the winners of the 2020 poetry competition, which this year had the theme 'Standing Her Ground'.

The Trócaire and Poetry Ireland annual poetry competition uses the arts to raise awareness about global justice, ecological and equality issues.

In a statement, Trochaire says: "Given that this has been such a difficult year, with schools closed since early March, we have been delighted with the volume and the quality of the response to this year's theme.

"The annual Poetry Competition is a wonderful example of the expression of global justice issues through poetry. This year's theme 'Standing Her Ground', used the extraordinary stories of Angela and Madris, two brave mothers from Honduras and Kenya who featured in Trócaire's 2020 Lenten Campaign who are supporting their families by standing up for their right to earn a living on their own land.

"These brave women are battling enormous odds, including threats like violence, intimidation and drought, to provide food for their children and to keep them in school.

"It is heartening to see, even in these challenging times, how school children and adults alike can take a theme of injustice and turn it into inspiring poems that tell similar stories often with hopeful messages for the future.

With winners from nine separate counties overall, we are particularly aware of the effort it took all our schools category entries to participate this year and we would like to thank everyone for their continued interest and support for the Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition."

The winners and runners-up are across six categories: adult published, adult unpublished, primary junior, primary senior, post-primary junior and post-primary senior. See the full list here: www.trocaire.org/news/winners-trocaire-2020-poetry-ireland-competition-announced

As a physical awards ceremony isn't possible due to Covid-19 restrictions, the winners of the competition will be celebrated with a streamed video event on the Poetry Ireland's YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/user/poetryireland