I Am Edel

Susan Connolly was born in Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland, in 1956. She studied Music and Italian at University College, Dublin. Her first full-length collection For the Stranger was published by the Dedalus Press in 1993. Other short collections include her sequence Boann in 'How High the Moon' (1991), 'Race to the Sea' (1999) and 'Winterlight' (2002). Collaborations with artist and photographer Anne-Marie Moroney include 'Race to the Sea', 'Ogham: Ancestors Remembered in Stone' (2000) and 'Winterlight'. With Anne-Marie Moroney she co-authored 'Stone and Tree Sheltering Water' (1998), an exploration of sacred and secular wells in Co. Louth. The publication of this book was sponsored by the Heritage Council of Ireland.Susan Connolly was awarded the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry in 2001. In the same year she received a Publications Grant from the Heritage Council of Ireland for 'A Salmon in the Pool', a literary and place-names map of the river Boyne from source to sea. She has received bursaries from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annamakerrig.The poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin has written: "Connolly in her work explores the significance of place through layers of time, resonating with history, folklore and archaeology."Several of her poems have been set to music by the composer Michael Holohan and have been performed in Ireland and abroad. A 40-minute programme about her poetry 'Touched by Winterlight' was broadcast on ABC National Radio (Australia) in 2005.

This stage play is the compelling true story of Susan Connolly's 11 years as a child in Dublin's notorious Goldenbridge Industrial School.Told from the viewpoint of a child I Am Edel is a story of courage, friendship and compassion. Although set in a tragic environment it is often comic in telling the ingenuity of a child survivor.