Katherine O’Donnell is Professor of the History of Ideas at UCD School of Philosophy, University College Dublin. Until 2015 she was Director of UCD Women’s Studies Centre (a position she held for ten years). While on leave from UCD in the academic years of 2015/2106 and 2016/17 she lectured in the University of Oxford BPhil’s Programme in Philosophy, teaching the modules on Feminist Philosophy and on return to UCD she moved into the School of Philosophy to become the first faculty appointment in the History of Ideas.  Prof. O’Donnell has been awarded a number of teaching awards including the University College Dublin’s President’s Gold Medal for Excellence in Teaching, and the British Universities Learning On-Screen Award (2014).  She is a member of the 5-person Justice for Magdalenes Research group whose academic/advocacy was critical in securing a state apology and redress scheme for Ireland’s former Magdalene women. She is widely published in the History of Ideas including 43 peer-reviewed essays and several authored and co-authored monographs and volumes, as well as a recent historical novel called Slant. Her research has also been recognised as highly impactful and she is the only scholar to be awarded with three research impact awards by UCD, including the inaugural «engaged research impact prize».  She has been invited to give guest lectures and keynote conference addresses in eleven countries.

Sylvie Mikowski is Professor of Irish and English Studies at the University of Reims-Champagne-Ardenne (France). Her main interests are the contemporary Irish novel and popular culture. Her main publications include Le Roman irlandais Contemporain, The Book in Ireland, Memory and History in France and Ireland, Irish Women Writers, Ireland and Popular Culture, Popular Culture Today, The Circulation of Popular Culture between Ireland and the USA, Ireland: Spectres and Chimeras. She has also published numerous book chapters and articles on various contemporary Irish writers, such as John McGahern, William Trevor, Colum McCann, Patrick McCabe, Roddy Doyle, Deirdre Madden, Sebastian Barry, Anne Enright, etc. She served as literary editor of the French journal of Irish Studies Études Irlandaises and is currently President of the SOFEIR, the French Society of Irish Studies. A member of the board of EFACIS, she is also review editor for RISE (Review of Irish Studies in Europe).

Catherine Dunne is a Dublin-based writer of literary fiction and non-fiction whose novels have been translated into Albanian, Danish, Dutch, Greek, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. In the Beginning was published in 1997 to much critical and popular acclaim. A Name for Himself followed a year later, and was short listed for the Kerry Fiction Prize. Between 2000 and 2014, she published seven further novels: The Walled Garden, Another Kind of Life, Something Like Love, At a Time Like This, Set in Stone, Missing Julia and The Things We Know Now. Her non-fiction book, An Unconsidered People was published in 2003. Catherine has also written short stories and non-fiction pieces for various publications, among them Moments, Travelling Light and Irish Girls about Town. She has been twice awarded the Arts Council Bursary for English Literature and she received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature in 2018. Her other prizes include the inaugural Rapallo Bper Banca European Prize for Literature (2023) for Una buona madre (A Good Enough Mother) and the 700th Anniversary Giovanni Boccaccio International Award for fiction (2013). Her shortlistings include Novel of the Year at Listowel (Kerry Prize), Bancarella Booksellers’ Award (Italy), Irish Novel of the Year (Irish Book Awards) and International Strega Prize for Fiction (Italy). Catherine was nominated for the first Laureateship for Irish Fiction and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award (2018). She was Vice-Chair of the Irish Writers’ Centre 2010-2013 and co-founded the Italo-Irish Literature Exchange, which led to an anthology ‘Lost Between’ (‘Tra una vita e l’altra’) published in Ireland and Italy. Together with Enrica Maria Ferrara she co-curated the first FIILI in September 2023 (Festival of Italian and Irish Literature in Ireland) a collaboration between the Istituto Italiano di Cultura and Irish PEN. Dunne’s work has been supported by Literature Ireland, The Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation and Irish in Italy. She was elected Chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann in February 2023 and to Aosdána in 2024. 

Claire Kilroy is the author of five novels, All Summer, (Faber, 2003), Tenderwire, (Faber, 2006), All Names Have Been Changed, (Faber, 2009), and The Devil I Know (Faber, 2012). In 2023, after an eleven year silence, her fifth novel, Soldier Sailor, about the early years of motherhood, was published to universal acclaim.  The Times selected it as the Times Novel of The Year, and it was named a Best Book by The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Economist, The Irish Examiner, The Journal, The Irish Independent, Vogue, and The Independent.  It was shortlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Sky Arts Literature Award and the Irish Novel of the Year.  She studied at Trinity College and lives in Dublin.