Well-known Irish poet and writer of memoir, David McLoghlin will host a mindfulness and nature-based poetry workshop at the Cabragh Wetlands Trust Visitor and Interpretive Centre, Cabragh, Holycross on Saturday afternoon, November 18th from 2pm to 4pm. This is a unique opportunity for budding writers to learn from a master poet, generate new work in a beautiful natural setting, make contact with other writers, strengthen their literary community, deepen their commitment to writing and read writers from a variety of literary traditions. David has over a decade's experience teaching and mentoring in creative writing. He has taught at University College, Dublin and New York University, where he was a Writing Fellow at Coler-Specialty Hospital. David also works with Poetry Ireland's Writers in Schools programme and with the National Mentoring Scheme. David is no stranger to Tipperary, having worked extensively with Poetry as Commemoration during 2023, leading adults and secondary school students in responding to primary source materials from the War of Independence and the Civil War. In partnership with Mary Guinan of Tipperary Studies, David led a number of highly successful workshops in Thurles Library last March with poems from participants published by UCD as part of the Irish Poetry Reading Archive. Speaking about the upcoming workshop, David said, “I am looking forward to returning to Tipperary and visiting the beautiful Cabragh Wetlands. A key component of creative writing in general, and of poetry in particular, is paying attention to both our surroundings and our inner lives. Both can involve a kind of mindfulness that can benefit us. In this one-off poetry workshop, we will walk in the Wetlands (weather permitting), read poems that merge the poets’ outer and inner lives via their responses to nature, as well as urban contexts. We will then use these readings as examples to inspire our own in-class writing. What this kind of pairing can do is to give us a better sense of the worlds to which we belong, increase our gratitude, and give us tools for future connection with ourselves and others as well as with our built and natural environments.”