The Nerve: An English and Arts Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, Jenny speaks to Tomm Moore of Kilkenny-based animation studio Cartoon Saloon. Its most recent film, Wolfwalkers, is currently nominated for the 2021 Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe. Prior to this, The Breadwinner, Song of the Sea, The Secret of Kells and the short film Late Afternoon were also nominated for Oscars...

In this episode, Jenny is joined by Joanne McCarthy, one of the co-founders of literary magazine, The Waxed Lemon. Joanne discusses the responses to the latest edition’s call for submission, offers advice for budding contributors and reads from her own poetry which has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Honest Ulsterman, and The Bangor Literary Review. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

In this episode of the podcast, Jenny chats to writer John Patrick McHugh, whose recent collection of short stories, Pure Gold, has received rave reviews from The Irish Times and Vanity Fair. Prior to the publication of the collection, JP’s stories were published in literary journals like Granta, Winter Papers and The Stinging Fly. The conversation veers from how long it takes to produce two good...

Bernie McGill’s novel The Watch House was nominated in 2019 for the Ireland/European Prize for Literature and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes nominated The Butterfly Cabinet as his novel of the year in 2012. Her short fiction has been nominated for several awards and in 2008, she won the Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Award in the United States. Bernie is a former Writing Fellow with the...

In this season of episodes, Jenny conducts one-to-one interviews with people who are important to the Arts in Ireland in one way or another. This first episode features Barbara McCormack, the Academy Librarian with the Royal Irish Academy. The discussion focuses on what it means to be in this type of role and how the pandemic has affected the work that can be done. There is also some valuable advi...

Ho ho ho! Five of the regular podcast hosts from WIT got together to record a joint episode recommending some books, TV programmes, films, podcasts and tech that you (or a loved one) might enjoy over the Christmas period. Features Jenny O’Connor from The Nerve, Bruce Wardrop from Win Win, Niamh Maguire from Engendering Change, Tom Grinsell from WIT Talks Student Life and Rob O’Connor of The Machin...

In this episode of The Nerve, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by three English graduates who are currently engaged in postgraduate study. Lauren Browne, Michael Power and Dylan Phelan reflect on what they might tell their first year selves about opening themselves up to new experiences, taking feedback on board and fostering self-belief, and they discuss how the BA Arts programme has prepared them fo...

In this episode of The Nerve, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by Billy O’Callaghan, our special guest for this semester’s English and Theatre Studies Day. Billy is the winner of a Bord Gais Energy Book Award and has been nominated for a raft of other awards for his writing. He has had over a hundred short stories published in literary journals around the world and has had his work translated into ele...

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Jenny O’Connor talks to Dr. Christa de Brun about being on the judging panel for the Global Undergraduate Awards, which receives approximately 4,000 entries each year from across the world. She is also joined by two former English, Aaron Kent and Alessia Zuccarelli, who discuss being highly commended in the Awards and how their time at WIT led to their current p...

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Jenny O’Connor speaks to Dr. Áine Furlong, Dr. Úna Kealy and English and Theatre Studies student Jack Reid about the process of moving from face-to-face to emergency online teaching and learning. They discuss the things that scared them the most, the opportunities they see in the digital space, and top tips for maximising time and  energy online. Hosted on...

We continue our Books on the Nightstand tradition in the final episode of The Nerve for this semester. However, while we normally invite staff from other departments to give their recommendations, we had to improvise a little in these abnormal times. Instead, this episode comes to you from the sitting room of Dr. Jenny O’Connor, who is joined by her husband Rob O’Connor from the Department of Comp...

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by Dr. Jennifer O’Mahoney and Dr. Kate McCarthy of the Magdalene Heritage and Waterford Memories projects which aim to document survivors’ narratives about their time in Magdalene laundries and to offer educational resources to schools and the general public that focus on the social history, cultural and built heritage of Waterford’s for...

English Day at WIT takes place once per semester. This semester, we were delighted to welcome the multi-award winning author and lecturer in Creative Writing, Donal Ryan to the Institute for a workshop with our English major and minor students. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by Donal who speaks about the process of writing and the emergent beauty of simple, precise la...

As part of the extracurricular programme of events on offer to students of English and/or Theatre Studies at WIT, staff and students attended a production of Gone Full Havisham at Garter Lane Arts Centre. The play documents the wedding night of Emily Halloran, who has been jilted at the altar and is live streaming the fallout via social media. Written and performed by Irene Kelleher and directed b...

In the first episode of The Nerve for the new semester, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by three English students to talk about the content of the English programme: first year Rebecca Byrne, second year Beibhinn O’Sullivan and third year Lauren Browne. The students discuss the modules they’re studying, the extra-curricular English activities facilitated by staff and the benefits of studying at WIT (...

In this episode, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by colleagues from the School of Humanities to discuss the current books on their nightstand. Dr. Hazel Farrell (Music), Philip Cremin (Religious Studies) and Dr. Christa de Brún (English) talk about the texts they have been enjoying recently and that they would recommend to others. The books include a biography about a woman who created Ireland’s firs...

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by Dr. José Francisco Fernández Sánchez, a Beckett scholar and expert in translation from the University of Almería in Spain, as well as WIT lecturers Dr. Úna Kealy (English and Theatre Studies) and Andrés Romera (Spanish) who have recently collaborated on a translation of Teresa Deevy’s The King of Spain’s Daughter. The discussion range...

In this episode, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by Jane Keane of the Imagine Arts Festival committee who highlights this year’s not-to-be missed events and talks about how important the Arts scene is for Waterford. The festival incorporates Waterford Writers’ Weekend and also in studio are Dr. Una Kealy and Dr. Fiona Ennis who speak about their festival event, which is entitled “Impossible Situation...

Upcoming productions: The Playboy of the Western World, Long Day’s Journey into Night and the Eugene O’Neill FestivalIn this, our twentieth episode of The Nerve, we discuss upcoming theatre productions and the texts behind them. Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined in studio by Dr. Richard Hayes, an O’Neill scholar who tells us about the extraordinary journey of Eugene O’Neill’s family from New Ross to Am...

In this episode, Dr. Jenny O’Connor is joined by fellow English and Theatre Studies lecturer, Dr. Kate McCarthy and special guest, WIT alumnus and London-based actor Jamie Beamish. Jamie discusses playing Iago in a Waterford accent, what he learned during his time studying music at WIT, and how a willingness to diversify and adapt is key to the success of any Arts graduate. Hosted on Acast. See ac...

In the final episode of The Nerve for this academic year, Jenny is joined by Margaret O’Brien, lecturer in Creative Writing at WIT and second year English students Michael Power and Eleanor O’Connor. The discussion is focused upon flash fiction: stories of 1,000 words or less that, through their brevity, offer freedom from the traditional rules of writing and yet, require great attention to detail...

In this episode of the podcast, Jenny is joined by Dr. Úna Kealy, lecturer in English and Theatre Studies, and students from both of those disciplines, Aoife Molloy, Sinead Croarkin and Bronagh Sharpe. The topic under consideration is the production of The Country Girls now playing in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which WIT staff and students travelled to last week. The Country Girls, a novel banne...

In this episode, Jenny is joined by Dr. Kate McCarthy, fellow English lecturer (and our resident Shakespeare conspiracy theorist) and first year students Béibhínn O’Sullivan and Dean Cusack Lynch, who are currently studying the module Shakespeare: Drama and Film. The podcast discusses our enduring attachment to Shakespeare, the film adaptations and reinterpretations of his plays, and whether he, i...

This special episode of The Nerve sees writer Danielle McLaughlin join Dr. Jenny O’Connor in the studio, alongside Creative Writing lecturer Margaret O’Brien and English students Brandon Collins and Dylan Phelan. Danielle McLaughlin is the current UCC Writer-in-Residence and her stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Southword, The New Yorker a...

The first English at WIT podcast of 2019 sees Dr. Jenny O’Connor and Dr. Fiona Ennis of English discussing “Books on the Nightstand” with Mairéad Meagher and Rob O’Connor of the Department of Computing and Maths. Topics range from short story collections about gender, law and politics to novels about music and physics, as well as genocide and the Nuremberg trials. We also mention Danielle McLaughl...