New Poet in Residence Appointed at UHI Institute for Northern Studies

The UHI Institute for Northern Studies is delighted to announce that Cáit O’Neill McCullagh has been appointed Poet in Residence in recognition of her exceptional contributions to literature.

This position will provide her with a platform to refine her craft and create new works, typically in connection with specific events or occasions hosted by the Institute. She will also have opportunities to lead workshops and teach on various occasions.

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh arrived in Scotland as a teenager in the mid-1980s and fell in love with the unique communities, culture and history of the Highlands and Islands. After receiving a Distinction for her BA in Cultural Studies of the Highlands from the then UHI Millennium Institute, Cáit went on to earn another Distinction for her postgraduate MSt in European Archaeology from Keble College, Oxford. Her thesis examined the factors influencing the Christianisation in Northern Pictland through a semiotic analysis of cross slabs and related material culture from the First Millennium CE.

After a period working as a community archaeologist and ethnologist and as a curator on the Isle of Lismore, and at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, Cáit took up a SGSAH studentship for a practice-based PhD, supervised in partnership between Heriot-Watt University, UHI Institute for Northern Studies, and Shetland Museum. The practice-based projects upon which her research was based (including co-producing new films and creative writing, and the co-curation of a virtual museum of maritime cultural expressions with organisations and community groups from throughout the Northern Isles). Circumstances, including her diagnosis with cancer, have curtailed her writing-up of this work.

“I was one of the first students to graduate from the fledgling UHI Institute for Northern Studies almost 25 years ago, so I am delighted to have the opportunity to work with the INS staff and students in this new position of Poet in Residence. I aim to highlight their remarkable work in culture, heritage, and literature and write poetry about the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, about my own home and place of belonging, and hopefully stimulate conversations and reflections on the past, present and future of our rich and nationally and internationally, significant culture, environment, region and people.” Cáit O’Neill McCullagh 

Her poems are published widely in journals, magazines and anthologies, including by the Federation of Writers Scotland; Bella Caledonia; Howl New Irish Writing; Ink Sweat & Tears; London Grip; New Writing Scotland; Northwords Now; Paperboats; Poetry Scotland; The Long Poem Magazine; The Poets’ Republic, and in The Scotsman (Poem of the Week).

Cáit’s debut pamphlet ‘The songs I sing are sisters’, a collaboration with Sligo-based poet Sinéad McClure, was a winner of Dreich’s ‘Classic Chapbook Competition’ in 2022, and was published by them in the same year. It won a Saboteur Award in 2023.

Examples of her work and more information is available on Research - Poet in Residence