A new poetry pamphlet - City of Dreamers and Woodlice

16 Aug, 2026

I have published a new poetry pamphlet on the publications page, and it's available free as a PDF: City of Dreamers and Woodlice.

These are ecopoems from the last decade or so, gathered together for the first time. Here is the title poem:

Renaming Dublin

I would rename this city
away from its human name.
Instead I would place it
back into the island landscape
from which it emerges.

No longer would the black pool
be only a human description.
I would rename Dublin
"the black pool on the river mouth
in the flatness of a muddy estuary,

the city of foxes and magpies,
city of brent geese wintering,
city sweeping down
from Kippure to Bray Head,
all the way around the bay

past grey seals to Howth,
city of clashing antlers
and fawns hiding
in the long grass
near Áras an Uachtaráin,

city of pigeons in beech trees,
city of rookeries,
city of bluetits and goldfinches
on bird feeders in small gardens,
city of screaming vixens

as the oystercatchers
pipe across the dark sky
of UCD football pitches,
city of ten thousand rats,
city of house spiders,

watershed of small rivers,
Dodder, Tolka, Poddle, Slang,
city of dreamers and woodlice,
city of whales moving slowly
up and down the Irish Sea"

Read it, pass it on, print it :)