Galway City Poetry Trail - Eyre Square

Rita Ann Higgins' poem 'Men With Tired Hair' was unveiled by Professor Adrian Frazier at Richardson's Bar, No. 1 Eyre Square, Galway as part of the Cuirt International Festival of Literature on April 8th, 2014. Arts Officer James Harold spoke warmly of how wonderful it is to have Rita Ann's poetry immortalised in stone in Galway. A native of Ballybrit, Galway, Higgins was one of thirteen children in a working-class household. She married in 1973 but following the birth of her second child in 1977, contracted tuberculosis, forcing her to spend an extended period in a sanatorium. While confined, she began reading, and took to composing poems. She joined the Galway Writers' Workshop in 1982. Jessie Lendennie, editor of Salmon Publishing, encouraged Higgins and oversaw the publication of her first five collections.