Colm Breathnach Biography

Breathnach was born Cork City in 1961. He studied philosophy and Irish at UCC and now works as a terminologist with the Department of Education and as a translator with the Government translation service. He is four times winner of the Oireachtas premier prize for poetry in Irish.

‘. . . just the clear exposure of a soul
without self pity or shame . . .’ (‘Heart and Rock’)

This Cervantean attitude to life and the world, and hence to the subject matter of his poetry, in which bravery and equanimity play a major part, accepting and daring to delight in the multifariousness of the human condition, intimates the essence of Breathnach’s poetic vision.