IRISH HISTORY IN 10 POEMS: Pultizer Prize-winning poet and longtime Princeton University Professor Paul Muldoon will read from his work on November 15 at an event on the campus. (Photo by Christine Harris)

By Anne Levin

A survey of Irish history, from the Vikings to the Troubles and beyond, is the focus of a reading by Paul Muldoon on Friday, November 15 at the James Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau Street. “A History of Ireland in 10 Poems” is a free, illustrated lecture presented by Princeton University’s Fund for Irish Studies.

The event is the latest in the Fund’s 2024-25 series, which will also include conversations with leaders of the Abbey Theater, and readings by authors Colm Toibin, Niall Williams, and Fintan O’Toole. The Fund “affords all Princeton students, and the community at large, a wider and deeper sense of the languages, literatures, drama, visual arts, history, and economics not only of Ireland but of ‘Ireland in the world,’” reads a release from the University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.

Princeton Professor Jane Cox, who co-chairs the Fund this year with Professor Robert Spoo, said she is particularly excited to begin an ongoing partnership with the Abbey Theater, which is Ireland’s National Theater. She described it as “a lens through which we hope to explore the relationship of Irish theater to a changing population in Ireland and abroad, and a changing political atmosphere.”

Muldoon has been teaching at Princeton for 35 years. The Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Creative Writing, he was the founding chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts. Born in County Armagh, Ireland in 1951, Muldoon is the author of 15 collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for the ninth collection, Moy Sand and Gravel.

Additional awards include the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2017 Queens Gold Medal for Poetry, and honorary doctorates from 10 universities. Muldoon was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1999 to 2004, and poetry editor of The New Yorker from 2007 to 2017.

Muldoon, who lives in New York City with his wife, author Jean Hanff Korelitz, appears occasionally with the spoken word music group, Rogue Oliphant. In 2021, he edited Paul McCartney’s two-volume anthology The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Muldoon is the founder and past chair of the Fund for Irish Studies. Cox, who like Muldoon is of Irish descent, is a Tony Award-winning lighting designer. At the University, she directs the Program in Theater & Music Theater, and is a Professor of the Practice in Theater.

Cox is excited to work with an expanded committee “which includes renowned Irish composer Donncha Dennehy, University librarian Anne Jarvis, and celebrated writer Yiyun Li,” she said. “We plan to continue to invite a diverse roster of Irish artists, intellectuals, and public figures in order to deepen connections and understanding between the Princeton community and Ireland, and Ireland in the world.”

The reading by Muldoon is Friday, November 15 at 4:30 p.m. Visit arts.princeton.edu for more information.