Heroic Horizons brings together four women poets whose work interrogates the cultural, emotional, and historical legacies of Irish and Scottish migration to Australia. Through poetry and performance, this event traces diasporic journeys shaped by displacement, endurance, inheritance, and imagination, situating Celtic migration within the broader context of colonial Australian history.

Drawing on archival research, family histories, folklore, and lived experience, poets Linda Adair, Anne Casey, Annemaree Daziel, and Melita Rowston explore how language, land, memory, and identity are carried across oceans and generations. Their works reflect on what is preserved, what is transformed, and what is lost in the process of settlement, while also acknowledging the complex realities of colonial presence on unceded Aboriginal lands.

The program foregrounds poetry and art as a critical and creative method — a means of questioning inherited narratives of heroism, survival, and belonging, while opening space for nuance, ambiguity, and dialogue. Performance elements further animate the spoken word, offering audiences an embodied encounter with history that is both personal and collective.

Presented as part of the Brigid the Bard Festival, Heroic Horizons invites audiences to listen deeply to stories shaped by migration and to consider how diasporic Celtic identities continue to influence contemporary Australian culture. This event is both a celebration of poetic craft and a thoughtful examination of the cultural horizons that emerge when histories intersect.

The event is to be hosted by Angela Stretch, Poetry Sydney.

Presented by Poetry Sydney as part of the Brigid the Bard Festival (30 Jan – 1 Feb 2026), the event offers a reflective and contemporary examination of migration, memory, and belonging.

Brigid the Bard Festival is supported by Waverley Council, and events are located in East Sydney from the Waverley Library to the Baroque Room in Katoomba, Blue Mountains.

Poetry Sydney acknowledges First Nations peoples as the sovereign custodians of Country, and pay respect to Elders of past, present and to future generations. We value the distinct culture, customs and practices present in the many and diverse tribal nations across Australia.

Stay in touch with poets and poetry @poetrysydney #poetrysydney

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