Student Donal Conaty

‘Sure you could teach it’ was the most common response I got when I said I had enrolled on the BA in Writing & Literature at IT Sligo. They had a point but only up to a point. Yes, I had been a journalist for the better part of 30 years and had a satirical novel published in 2011 but other attempts at writing novels and even short stories had always fallen short. However, wanting to write fiction remained a strong impulse irrespective of how frustrating I found the process.

As luck would have it my third time being made redundant from a journalism job coincided with IT Sligo launching the course. I was only working part time, so I could fit it in, and the opportunity to immerse myself in an environment where everyone was interested in writing and literature proved impossible to resist.

I had doubts, of course, at taking such a path in middle age, but one semester in, the decision seems a good one. There’s a good mix of students young and old on the course, all interesting in themselves and all enthusiastic about books, be it writing or reading them. Some of the other mature students are accomplished award-winning short story writers and poets and some of the younger ones already show a distinctive writing style that promises much. The lecturers have tailored the course to the needs of individual students so all of us should emerge with something positive from the process – perhaps even a book!