Poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill was born in Lancashire, England in 1952 to Irish parents, who worked as doctors in an Irish mining community there. Her family spoke Irish at home. When she was five years old, her family moved to Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland. Although her family lived there for fifteen years, Ní Dhomhnaill felt more at home with her aunt in Cahiratrant, a small village in Ventry, County Kerry, where she was immersed the Irish language. At twelve, Ní Dhomhnaill attended Catholic boarding school and began the practice of writing daily in Irish. Ní Dhomhnaill studied English and Irish at University College Cork, where she met Dogan Leflef, a Turkish geologist. The two were married in 1973 and had four children together.

After her marriage, Ní Dhomhnaill lived in Turkey for seven years. She returned to Ireland in 1980, and, within a year, she had published her first book of poems in Irish: An Dealg Droighin (1981). She has since published volumes of poetry, including Rogha Dánta / Selected Poems (1990) with facing translations by Michael Hartnett; The Astrakhan Cloak (1992) and The Fifty Minute Mermaid (2007) with translations by Paul Muldoon; The Water Horse (1999) with translations by Medbh McGuckian and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin; and Pharoah’s Daughter (1993) with translations by Seamus Heaney, John Montague, Ciaran Carson, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, and others. In 2002, Ní Dhomhnaill edited and introduced the Contemporary Poetry section of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Women’s Writing (2002), which includes poems by Biddy Jenkinson, Eavan Boland, Nuala Archer, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Rita Ann Higgins, Vona Groarke, and many others.

Ní Dhomhnaill has served as visiting professor at Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and Queen’s University Belfast, as well as Smith College, Villanova University, New York University, and Boston College. In addition to teaching, she has traveled to give lectures and readings all over the world.

Extensive scholarly research informs her work, which delves into multicultural poetry, mythologies, spiritualties, and folktales. Ní Dhomhnaill's identification with Cahiratrant has been lifelong; the culture and landscapes of that locale frequently serving as an inspiration and a backdrop for her poetry.

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill lives in Dublin. She continues to write, teach, and travel.

Sources:

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala, and Frawley, Oona, Ed. Selected Essays. Dublin: New Island, 2005.

Poetry Foundation. “Biography: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.” Accessed October 2016. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/nuala-ni-dhomhnaill#poet