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Life
[fam. “Walsh”]; b. Carlow, into a farming family; now lives in Co. Mayo; formerly married, with children; came out as lesbian; wrote The Woman with the Owl Tattoo, a poetry ‘chapbook’ dealing with the coming-out of a rural Irish woman; issued Odd as F*ck (Fly on the Wall) treating themes such family relationships, mental health, sexuality, ageing and motherhood; isseud He Used to be Me (New Island), novel centred on Mad Matt, a marginalised man in Castlebar with profound injuries from an early riding-accident who relates to crows; also wrote My Dead Husband’s Hereford Bull, a play, performed at the International Dubin Gay Festival in 2020; The Demise of an Undertaker’s Wife is a short-story collection; Donnelly is deemed an outstandingly authentic voice and has received critical homages from Nuala O’Connor, Kevin Higgins and others; appt. poet laureate of Belmullet, Co. Mayo, 2021; she works works at the Student Services Offier at GMIT Mayo.
Works
Poetry, The Woman with the Owl tTattoo (Derbyshire UK: Fly on the Wall Poetry 2019), 39pp. [ill., b&w.]; Odd as F*ck (New Mills, Derbyshire 2021), 93pp. Fiction, He Used to Be Me (Dublin: New Island 2023), 136pp.
Quotations
"I sit on the stone that will mark my bed of bones. You'll find the used-to-be-me soon, flat body, washed up, wrinkly skin. No silly grin. You'llsay, What a waste of a life. Tut-tut sounds jump out. Dangle like worms from your crow"s mouth." (he used to be me, New Island, 20023; noticed on New Island page.)
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