About Daragh

Daragh Byrne is an Irish poet who lives on Gadigal land (Sydney). His work has been published in journals, newspapers and anthologies in Australia and Ireland, including Poetry Wales, Wild Court, Southword, Crannóg, Skylight 47, Abridged and Westerly (see full list of publications here).

He has won 3rd Prize in the Poetry London Competition (2022), was shortlisted for the Val Vallis Award (2022), was runner up in the Allingham Poetry Prize (2021) and Highly Commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize (2021) (see full list of awards here).

He makes his living writing software, and runs The Sydney Poetry Lounge, a long-running open mic night.

Daragh first became interested in poetry at secondary school in Ireland. He began writing at the time, submitting to local newspapers. Like many, put it aside in favour of a career in science and software engineering - partly at the advice of an English teacher, who suggested it might be better to study Physics while young; that there might be time to return to literature after a few years had passed. This turned out to be prophetic, and in 2019, Daragh began writing seriously, submitting to journals and competitions, and running The Sydney Poetry Lounge.