Trinity graduate and celebrated Irish poet Eavan Boland has died today aged 75.
Boland passed away at her Dublin home following a stroke.
Boland, born in Dublin, graduated from Trinity in 1966 with a degree in English literature and language, having published a pamphlet of 23 poems in her first year as a student.
She also taught in Trinity and served as College’s writer in residence.
Her works are a staple of literature study in Trinity, while most students in Ireland no matter what they studied would have encountered Boland’s works on the Leaving Cert English curriculum.
Through her work, Boland explored the role of women in Irish society, paying particular attention to the violence experienced by innocents during conflict in Ireland.
In 2018, commemorating women’s suffrage, Boland spoke at the United Nations with her poem “Our Future Will Become The Past of Other Women”.
Her ability to document the lived experiences of Irish women drew her acclaim and firmly placed her at the creative front of the fight for women’s rights in Ireland.
In recent years, Boland was dividing her time between Ireland and the United States and was a professor of English and director of the creative writing programme at Stanford University.
In 2017, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Book Awards for what was described as her art, her eloquence and her advocacy for poetry.
