Biography

Although neither of the two generations before her spoke Irish, Orna Ní Choileáin learned the language herself, and she is immensely proud of having had that chance. She writes her fiction in Irish: short stories for adults, novels for young readers, books for children, and a novel for adult learners. She writes in English too. She lives in Dublin.

Music and storytelling

Orna has a deep interest in Irish traditional music. She has won prizes in the stage competitions of the Oireachtas, at Feis Maitiú and at the Feis Ceoil, where she was awarded the Máirtín Ó Diomsaigh Trophy in 2000. She has been chosen to sing and speak at events for Gaisce, the President’s Award, and at international award ceremonies in Canada and Hong Kong. What she loves in the songs is the storytelling in them, and that is what first drew her to writing.

The short stories

Her first collection of short stories, Canary Wharf, was published by Cois Life in 2009, and The Irish Times welcomed it as the debut of a new voice in Irish-language literature. Her story ‘Camino’ was chosen as the Irish-language entry in Dalkey Archive Press’s anthology Best European Fiction 2010. Five stories from Canary Wharf have been on the prescribed material for Leaving Certificate Irish since the 2015 examination, which means that thousands of secondary-school students have read them.

A second collection, Sciorrann an tAm, followed in 2014 and was shortlisted that year for Gradam Uí Shúilleabháin, the Irish-language Book of the Year.

For young readers

Between 2012 and 2017 Cois Life published four novels in the series about Ailfí and his friend Marius, a vampire who prefers fig rolls to blood: Ailfí agus an Vaimpír, Vaimpír san Áiléar, I measc Vaimpírí and Greim na Vaimpíre. The first two were shortlisted for Gradam Réics Carló in 2012 and 2013, and Vaimpír san Áiléar won first prize in a young people’s fiction category at Oireachtas na Gaeilge in 2013.

Then came Morf (An Gúm, 2016), Foghlaí Mara Monte Carlo (LeabhairCOMHAR, 2017) and Spéirling (Cois Life, 2019), which was shortlisted for Gradam Réics Carló in 2019. Each of those three works won a prize in the Oireachtas literary competitions before it was published.

For younger children she wrote Tromach Tramach (2011) and the picture book Neansaí ar an bhFeirm (LeabhairCOMHAR, 2019), illustrated by Aidan J. Collins and shortlisted for Gradam Réics Carló in 2020. And for adult learners there is the short novel Bóthar na Rós (LeabhairCOMHAR, 2015).

Theatre and residency

Orna is also drawn to theatre as a way of taking the learner out of the classroom and tying the target language to live sound and image. She co-wrote the play Bun go Barr for young audiences with Aodán Ó Coileáin, and Aisling Ghéar staged it at Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich in Belfast in 2012.

She has received an Arts Council bursary, and in spring 2018 she was artist in residence at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, where she worked on a multidisciplinary project combining theatre, movement, music and film.