Public Lecture: Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O’Hara: Vona Groarke and Kate Kennedy in Conversation
Registration will close at 14:30 on 14 October
In her award-winning memoir, Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O’Hara, Ireland Professor of Poetry, Vona Groarke traces her great-grandmother’s journey from impoverished County Sligo to New York in July 1882. In this genre-bending work, Vona weaves newspaper clippings, passenger lists, and baptismal records with sonnets, speculative dialogue and ghostly visitations to examine not only her great-grandmother’s life, but the lives of the many ‘Ellens’ who traversed the Atlantic “and made such a difference, in the United States and at home”.

Vona will read from Hereafter and discuss her creative process with Kate Kennedy
Date: 14 October 2025, 17:30
Venue: Wolfson College, Linton Road OX2 6UD
Venue Details: Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
Speakers: Vona Groarke (Ireland Professor of Poetry), Kate Kennedy (Wolfson College, Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: eleri.watson@ell.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Oxford Centre for Life-Writing
Booking required?: Recommended
Booking url: https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/public-lecture-hereafter-the-telling-life-of-ellen-ohara-vona-groarke-and-kate-kennedy-in-conv
Audience: Public
Editor: Belinda Clark