Molly Twomey
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mollytwomey.bsky.social
Molly Twomey
@mollytwomey.bsky.social
930 followers 410 following 340 posts
Arts Council supported poet. ‘Raised Among Vultures’ & 'Chic to be Sad' published by The Gallery Press. Host of ‘Just to Say’ international poetry event. https://mollytwomey.com/ 💫
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mollytwomey.bsky.social
I am and will be a lifelong fan of Mícheál McCann's work 💘 @thegallerypress.bsky.social @irishtimes.com
Before Saint Genevieve's Tomb by Mícheál McCann When the old mystics described religious experiences maybe it felt a little like this: simply overcome as the bell rings ten, sore knees pressed into stone in the cavernous church looking up to an icon. Maybe it’s the thirty-eight-degree heat. Maybe it’s the sorrowful absence of cat hair in my mouth. Maybe it’s how Saint Genevieve saved a city through her words. Maybe it’s how she reminds me of my friends, of West Belfast, of Sister Mona’s roses. A gilt figure in Paris lands me somehow back to standing in a playground. Sister Anne. Riley wallpapering her classroom in book covers just to show the kids you can be hot and clever. Niamh speaking tenderly to and about the children. The army men who smothered Mona’s roses with busted sandbags. How the roses grew back. The ruins of those murdered rosebushes nourished whatever was to grow above them. All those girls who passed those roses every morning. All this from the gaze of the patron saint of shepherds. Maybe it’s not so profound. Maybe I’m just homesick and you could fry an egg on these Parisian cobbles. Or maybe it is. When my eyes dry, I get up from my knees and take my devotions with me into the brightness.
November 22, 2025 at 1:14 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
May the joy of my dad reacting with 🔥 on poems I post always find me
Facebook message of molly's dad reacting with a fire to a poem she posted on her stories
November 17, 2025 at 5:41 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
🚶‍♂️
FRANK ORMSBY Once a Day I take my hallucinations for a walk once a day at the Waterworks, that is to say I assume they accompany me. Acres of fresh air, some trees, a lake – plenty of space to practise disappearing. Would the dogs detect an aura or take a snarl at the invisible? I expected not. I expected right. Park life has its own concerns. The heron gathers North around him like a monk’s habit and appears to sleep. The ‘Joggers Against Oblivion’ are already on a gasping break. Only the terrier, Stupid Fucker, draws near and growls, then turns to the more urgent business of his life, chasing a ball for the angriest man in Ireland.
November 14, 2025 at 5:07 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
'I am that bitch. / I am dogged. I am so damned / not even Death wanted me.' Paul Tran on a dull Friday morning 🌧️
Poetry Foundation Homepage Poems & Poets Topics & Themes Features Events & Programs About Us Poetry magazine November 2025 Subscribe Subscribe Light blue cover for the November 2025 issue of POETRY with the word POETRY in a grid, composed of black letters in various designs.Cover for the October 2025 issue of POETRY magazine. Search by Poem or Poet Search Like Judith Slaying Holofernes I know better than to leave the house without my good dress, my good knife like Excalibur between my stone breasts. Mother would have me whipped, would have me kneeling on rice until I shrilled so loud I rang the church bells. Didn’t I tell you that elegance is our revenge, that there are neither victims nor victors but the bitch we envy in the end? I am that bitch. I am dogged. I am so damned not even Death wanted me. He sent me back after you sacked my body the way your armies sacked my village, stacked our headless idols in the river where our children impaled themselves on rocks. I exit night and enter your tent gilded in a bolt of stubborn sunlight. My sleeves already rolled up. I know they will say I am a slut for showing this much skin, this irreverence for what is seen when I ask to be seen. Look at me now: my thighs lift from your thighs, my mouth spits poison into your mouth. You nasty beauty. I am no beast, but my blade sliding clean through your thick neck while my maid keeps your blood off me and my good dress will be a song the parish sings for centuries. Tell Mary. Tell Eve. Tell Salome and David about me. Watch their faces, like yours, turn green.
November 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
What comes up when you google fiction books Ireland vs poetry books Ireland is really interesting.
Small Things like These Claire Keegan, 2020 Trespasses Louise Kennedy, 2022 Normal People Sally Rooney, 2018 The Heart's Invisible Furies John Boyne, 2017 Foster Claire Keegan, 2010 Intermezzo Sally Rooney, 2024 Brooklyn Colm Tóibín, 2009 The Bee Sting Paul Murray, 2023 The Pull of the Stars Emma Donoghue, 2020 The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry 2010 Pocket Irish Poetry 2015 An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry 2010 A golden treasury of Irish verse Lennox Robinson, 1925 Contemporary Irish Poetry 2006 Best-Loved Irish Love Poems 2025 Soundings: Leaving Certificate Poetry, Interim Anthology Windfall: Irish Nature Poems to Inspire and Connect Jane Clarke, 2023 The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats William Butler Yeats, 1935
October 20, 2025 at 1:07 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
'Let the worst I ever do to you be die.' A little Vona Groarke of a Saturday eve ☕
Aubade You say that you heard piano chords rustling in the night; that you woke once and saw me there, and again. Then I was gone. The sea under your bed said something like your name: you thought you'd drown. This morning your fever slinks away like a dog bested by the hubbub of city-fed and workaday birdsong come into its own. You call. You want some toast. The trees are bone dry; sunlight hunkers behind them. Your hair fronds when I lift your head as if out of a sea pulling away. I offer you the lidded cup. You take it and you drink. Let the worst I ever do to you be die. Turn your head sideways, dear, so I can watch you sleep. Let the morning have us, and the afternoon. I am here, blessed, capable of more.
October 11, 2025 at 4:12 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Under the bonnet of my car's POV.
Me looking ridiculous
September 20, 2025 at 10:35 AM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Google be making cute little '3 years since' and it's something like this 😭😂😶‍🌫️
House fire picture
September 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Think Vona Groarke is amazing tbh and am so delighted she's Ireland chair of poetry.
Cover of 'Hereafter The Telling Life of Ellen O'Hara featuring a pocket watch
August 28, 2025 at 3:56 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
A dream to see a poem from 'Chic to be Sad' in the Irish Times today 💜💙💛 @thegallerypress.bsky.social
What I Did on the Sideline Felt my stomach twist like the grip of my hurl when the coach said to hammer the other team, to shove and kick. Shivered in my damp, bulky skort, rough socks. Picked at my knees like chicken skewers. Consoled the girls who’d been dropped, others petrified they’d bleed on a pitch with a hedgerow for a toilet. Watched my team puck, pass, score. Grass scattered like secret notes between their studs. Listened to some dad call the goalie a ‘useless cunt’ as he smacked the metal lid of the dugout. Waited to be at least 7 points up, ran my tongue along the bar of my retainer as the sliotar soared over the goal. Would’ve died for a run. Patted the cup like a newborn when we won. Pictured the Powerade blue of the tumour bulging in my granny’s neck to make myself cry when we lost. Her small body morphine-patched, terrified. Roared ‘c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,’ helpful as a plaster trailing an open gash.
July 26, 2025 at 3:39 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Have been missing the glorious @crawfordartgallery.bsky.social so it was great to visit @rha-arts.bsky.social this week! Pic is of 'Takeover' by Maria Ginnity 🖌️
Oil painting of boys on the Luas holding bags
July 19, 2025 at 1:37 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
The loveliest time launching 'Chic to be Sad' in Dublin x mam took us to the dáil to get a selfie with the bike shed 🫰
Molly and her dad in the train station reading molly's book
July 19, 2025 at 10:34 AM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Even MTU is working for Big Wedding 💍💒 💰💳
Poster for MA an arts and engagement that says in large font 'Get Engaged'
June 22, 2025 at 5:20 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Saoirse don Phalaistín. 🇵🇸
June 7, 2025 at 5:21 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
✨Cover Reveal✨

I have been obsessed with Niamh Swanton's work since I saw it in @crawfordartgallery.bsky.social 😍 .

What a joy to have her work on the cover of 'Chic to Be Sad' due in July with @thegallerypress.bsky.social 💛 💜 🩵

& what a gift to see it in Outset Gallery last week 🤌 !
Molly's book cover is blue and Niamh Swanton's photo contains a woman's legs in purple high heels and yellow socks, there's a blue telephone dangling and used tissues all over the carpet. Molly beside Niamh Swanton's photo of a woman's legs in purple high heels and yellow socks, there's a blue telephone dangling and used tissues all over the carpet.
May 29, 2025 at 10:49 AM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Our next guest for Just to Say at 7pm on June 4th is Rachel Boast, writer, disability advocate and editor of the anthology Versus Versus, featuring work by 100 deaf, disabled and neurodivergent poets published by @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 🫶 😍
Email jacarpress@gmail.com for the free Zoom link x 🌻
text says: 'Just to Say' beside headshots of Molly and Rachel as well as the cover of 'Versus Versus'
May 21, 2025 at 3:38 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
🧈 Bealtaine & Butter 🧈 This #PoetryDay, May 1st, join us at 10AM for a free tour @thebuttermuseum.bsky.social! 💛 After, we’ll gather at Maureen’s for tea/coffee & a writing session 🌻
✍️ DM / email bealtainebutter@gmail.com to register!
Thanks to @poetryireland.bsky.social's Bright Ideas Bursary 💛
Molly with a huge clump of butter Poetry Ireland's poster for Poetry Day Ireland on the 1st of May The butter museum, Shandon, Cork Maureen's bar, Shandon, Cork
April 11, 2025 at 12:01 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Feels extra special to publish this poem in @magmapoetry.bsky.social so close to my grandad's first anniversary this Saturday 🤍 thanks to @aoifelyall.bsky.social & Victoria Kennefick x
Stay Quiet He’s so sick of the TV’s endless bellow, the stench of faeces and mashed potatoes, but Grandad never complains even as his surgery gets postponed over and over, bruises on his arms like berry compote. He knows not to stir, that one patient was murdered by another for weeping all night. My first Luas trip, a man, high or drunk, groped my grandfather’s skull, giggled at his grey curls, twirled them around his knuckles before smoothing them flat as a field of maize. Grandad sat as if at a barbers and waited for the guy with a knife poking from his pocket to stagger away. All he had lost by then — his wife, seven border collies. I was shaking, nine years old, without a ticket. ‘We’re invisible,’ Grandad whispered. Photo of Molly with her grandad and two brothers
April 7, 2025 at 4:45 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Did a lil photoshoot yesterday with the best photographer and I stopped in the middle of it to say 'oh look at that strange bird', it was a bag of shit. And I feel like that says something about the state of the world rn.
a bag of shit hanging off a tree
March 26, 2025 at 12:28 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Lovely night celebrating Thomas McCarthy's latest collection, Plenitude, @carcanet.bsky.social 💝 pics by the wonderful John Breen @waterstones.bsky.social Cork ✨👑
Molly and Tom in Waterstones Molly and Luke Morgan and Róisín Leggett Bohan in Waterstones
March 19, 2025 at 9:44 AM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Have been taking strength more seriously in the gym for bone density & confident bad ass bitch vibes but frankly the biggest difference is the state of my hands. 🤢
Molly's rotten calluses on her hand
March 15, 2025 at 6:06 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
I love all the cute Girl Power stuff though sometimes it can feel infantilising & the vibes feel bleaker this international women's day. Thinking of this poem by Annemarie Ní Churreáin 🙏
after Elizabeth Willis On this anniversary of The Irish State, better instead to celebrate a restless girl. A restless girl speaks the language of a birch. A restless girl can besmirch a priest in a flash. A restless girl takes a splash of whiskey before noon. The skin of a restless girl smells of gunfire and wolves. Often a restless girl will ask if not now, when? Many restless girls fall asleep in the sun. One restless girl had to be pinned down by six men. Another restless girl tore up an image of the pope. A restless girl may disguise herself as a stone. Sometimes a pale horse will take a restless girl away in the night. The underslip of a restless girl should not be washed; it should be burned. When leaving a room first check the corpse of a restless girl has not sprung alive behind your back. Best always to bury a restless girl in the wettest, darkest earth. It has been said that a restless girl once returned to haunt an innocent man. A whole town can be fouled by one restless girl. But see how the restless girl shimmers in the razor-light of a Scots pine. See how she sweetens the air like hawthorn. The restless girl belongs to us as fox belongs to moon. The fact is the restless girl has been, for us, a constitution. On public occasions we wear a necklace from which the ornament of her cut tongue hangs. If the last restless girl ends up drowned, or turned to ash, or trapped inside a horse-haired wall, what then? What then? Annemarie Ní Churreáin – A Hymn to All Restless Girls
March 8, 2025 at 9:06 AM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Can't believe that after a week in the rain with me, @bikecyan.bsky.social doesn't want to go home? Must be grá 🙏💜
Mike on his way to the Roman theatre
March 5, 2025 at 3:21 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
Might launch book 2 here in this Roman amphitheatre in Cartagena at unsuspecting and innocent tourists 🍸🚀😊
Roman amphitheatre
March 4, 2025 at 4:54 PM
mollytwomey.bsky.social
We literally booked a holiday in Spain for the only week in the year it rains lol @bikecyan.bsky.social
Mike drinking wine
March 2, 2025 at 9:56 PM