“No matter where I went I couldn’t get away from Tullamore”

Cormac Lally admits that no matter where he went in the world he “couldn’t get away” from Tullamore.

“Even when I was driving through the bush in Australia, in one of the most remote parts of the world, I came across a town called Tullamore,” he laughs “so it was impossible to escape my roots.”

The Tullamore (county Offaly!) native is one of 20 Poet Laureates to be appointed to towns across Ireland as part of Poetry Ireland’s new “Poetry Town” initiative, which aims to make poetry more accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds.

As part of the initiative, the Tullamore Poet Laureate has been commissioned to write a poem honouring and reflecting on his native town and its people. He is eagerly looking forward to what he describes as “the big reveal” when he will recite his poem for the first time before an audience at a special Poetry Town event in Tullamore Library at 6pm on Culture Night, Friday next, September 17.

Born and reared at 16 Church Street, in the heart of Tullamore, and the eldest of Noel and Teresa Lally’s family of four, Cormac Lally says he had to “go away from his roots” to really appreciate his own home town and its people, and he says it is “a tremendous honour” to have been appointed as Poet Laureate.

Although he always loved reading and writing and dabbled with writing the odd story or poem as a young lad, Cormac says his interest in English was “really whetted” when he started attending Ballinamere National School and came across Larry Fleming whom he describes as “a phenomenal teacher.”

“We used to be given an exercise to write a short story or a poem every week and we had to read it out in front of the class, so that was a great start,” he says “and then Larry’s Friday Quiz was legendary and it was a huge help in expanding our vocabulary and a great way of learning new words.”

Like many kids of his generation, Cormac Lally made the daily round trip to Ballinamere school on board ‘Timmy’s Bus” which was driven by one of Tullamore’s great characters, the late Timmy Smollen.

“When I went to the Vocational School (now Tullamore College) I had another great English teacher, the late Mary Healy, and she helped to expand my horizons even further because I joined Amnesty International as well as reading and writing poetry,” he recalls.

As a teenager, Cormac says he used to write the odd song for his friends. “They were the usual angsty stuff, and I don’t think any of them ever saw the light of day,” he laughs.

After a “brief brush” with electrical engineering in Athlone IT after school, which he left mid-way through first year, the Poet Laureate decided to study to become an electrician.

“As soon as I qualified I went travelling and spent the next few years away from Ireland, first in Holland and then in Australia,” he says. During that time he always carried “a pen and paper” and he also tried to keep a diary.

“I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t play a musical instrument so I discovered if I knew a few poems I was well armed around a camp fire or in any social setting where I might be called on to do a party piece,” he says, adding that he often told “the odd bawdy tale too, just for good measure.”

Describing himself as having “a fierce wild streak” when he was younger, Cormac Lally says that coming back home to Tullamore, and to the bosom of his family and his friends and his community was what greatly helped to give his life perspective after his wild years of travelling.

“When I was appointed as Poet Laureate I really couldn’t believe it,” he admits “and I can’t even begin to describe how honoured I am to have been given the chance to write a poem about Tullamore because the town and its people mean so much to me.”

Cormac believes that “the old sense of tribalism” is deeply ingrained in all of us. “It’s a bit like playing for your parish, the boys that you grew up with and that you know from your childhood, and to be able to honour that sense of parish and community by writing a poem about Tullamore is very humbling for me.”

Since 2015, Cormac Lally has made his home in Skibbereen in West Cork with his fiancée, Maura Cunningham, and their two children, 8-year old Tessa and Gavin, who is 4, and he is now regarded as one of Ireland’s leading spoken word artists. He met his fiancée, who is a native of Kill, in county Kildare, at the Phoenix Festival in Tullamore when she was working as a filmmaker, a job she still does on a part-time basis.

He says many people think he is married to his fellow spoken word artist, Julie Goo, with whom he has written two shows that have toured around Ireland to huge critical acclaim.

“I suppose you could say I’m in a polygamous poetry marriage,” he laughs, having clarified that he met Julie Goo at the 2014 All-Ireland Poetry Slam in Kilkenny and they just “hit it off” immediately and have been working professionally ever since.

“She is my poetry wife,” he jokes, adding that she is “fierce funny” and that they both share the same irreverent sense of humour and approach to their work.

Cormac Lally’s work has been described as “a mix of utter lies, hard truths, politics and family life” and he firmly believes that all good poetry “has to be relatable.” He doesn’t think his poetry is “the poetry of poets” but prefers to think of it as having “a large dollop of humour” in the mix.

As well as writing and performing his poetry, he also runs a company called Be Spoke where he specialises in writing wedding speeches. “It was going great until the pandemic hit and wiped out all the weddings, but they are slowly starting to come back,” he says.