SOURCE: “Interview with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin,” in Eire Ireland: A Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1-2, Spring, 1996, pp. 62-73.

In the following interview, Ray and Ní Chuilleanáin discuss the themes prevalent in Ní Chuilleanáin's poetry and talk about her other work and current projects.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork, in 1946, the daughter of Irish scholar Cormac O Cuilleanáin and novelist Eilis Dillon. She was educated at the University of Cork and at Oxford, and has lectured in medieval and Renaissance literature at Trinity College, Dublin, since 1966. She is married to the poet MacDara Woods and has a son, Niall. Together with Woods and Pearse Hutchinson, she founded the literary magazine Cyphers, which she continues to edit.

Critics commonly speak of the “elusiveness” of her poetry, its puzzle and mystery. Ní Chuilleanáin herself refers over and again to...