Poet Niamh to inspire school children during Grand Central residency

The 29-year-old west Belfast native has just been named Translink’s poet-in-residence at the new flagship £340m Grand Central Station.

Having completed a similar stint at the £17m York Street transport hub, it’s a role that Niamh’s familiar with – and one with rhyme and reason.

“Poetry is exciting, it’s current, it’s around us all the time,” she said. “I’ll write a piece of public poetry to be displayed in the station during the residency but I’m also taking creative writing workshops in Grand Central, based on journeys and connections and trains, buses and adventures. I’m also writing a blog on different journeys that I take around Northern Ireland.”

Niamh is particularly excited about the prospect of taking cross-community poetry workshops for around 300 children, ranging from Primary 7 to A Level, from schools in the local area. Part of her remit is to extol the virtues of public transport, as well to inspire children and young people to write poetry.

“I don’t drive so I’m a big fan of buses and trains,” she said.

Niamh said she appreciates Translink’s decision to fund the arts.

“It’s a unique thing for a corporation to put money into the arts, but it makes them more personal,” she added.

As York Street’s poet-in-residence, Niamh spearheaded Translink’s Poetry in Motion campaign, a collaboration between the public transport provider and Ulster University. The initiative included a poetry competition, encouraging members of the public to have a go at creative writing. But, thanks to Niamh’s suggestion, Translink also encouraged poets to travel around Northern Ireland, creating poems based on their journeys.

Those poems form the basis of a new anthology called Poetry in Motion, which will be launched on February 19 in Grand Central and available, free, for everyone to enjoy.

“It’s a compilation of poems from our poets in motion, and the general public,” Niamh said.

“Translink collaborated with Ulster University and Dr Frank Ferguson, Research Director for English Language and Literature spearheaded the project for the university. Renowned Strabane poet Maureen Boyd has also written two bespoke poems for the publication, making it an exciting mixture of new and established voices.”

So how does someone become a poet in the first place? “As part of my English and Film Studies degree at Ulster University in Coleraine, I spent a year in Poland, where I studied poetry,” she said. Then I came back, did a Masters in English and decided to pursue poetry as a career.”

Covid proved to be a turning point for Niamh, following a commission from Bushmills Distillery. Other commissions followed, including a film on the climate crisis for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, as well as an assignment on the pandemic from Business in the Community.

One of Niamh’s creations stretches along 150 feet of ceiling above pedestrians’ heads of the Whitla Street/Nelson Street pedestrian underpass. Indeed, her words sit alongside graffiti-style paintings from Seedhead Arts thanks to Translink’s renovation project in north Belfast.