About Martin Mooney
Martin Mooney has been publishing poetry in Irish, British, and North American journals since 1987. Over the following decades he established himself as a distinctive voice in contemporary Irish poetry, known for clarity of line, emotional precision, and an unflinching engagement with place, memory, and the uneasy inheritances of history.
Mooney is the author of four full collections: Grub (1993), which won the Brendan Behan Memorial Prize, Rasputin and His Children (2000), Blue Lamp Disco (2003), and The Resurrection of the Body at Killysuggen (2011). Alongside these, he has published a number of pamphlets, including Brecht & An Exquisite Corpse: Two Long Poems (1992), Escaping with Cuts and Bruises (1992), Operation Sandcastle (1996) Bonfire Makers (1998), and most recently, Nine Small Things (2025).
Mooney’s literary life has extended far beyond the page. He has written for the theatre, including adaptations of Shakespeare, Sheridan, and Ionesco for companies such as Bruiser Theatre Company and Kabosh Theatre Company in Belfast. He has also collaborated widely with composers and visual artists, producing texts for installations and interdisciplinary works.
After a decade-long hiatus from publishing, Mooney has recently returned to writing with renewed energy. His forthcoming Belfast from Space: New and Selected Poems gathers work from across three decades alongside new poems .