About me          
 
 
 

   Born to an Irish father and English mother, I was educated at a convent school in Manchester, then Trinity College, Dublin, where I read Honours English and learned a lot of things they didn't teach me at convent school. Among my lecturers were Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, David Norris and Brendan Kennelly.

 After graduating I moved to Edinburgh, where I taught for three years in Dr Guthrie's School for Boys, formerly known as the Ragged School. (Dr Guthrie was a Victorian philanthropist, and a statue of him with his arm around just one such ragged boy still stands on Princes Street, the city's main thoroughfare.) This was a List D School, attended by boys aged from eight to fourteen who had got into trouble but who were too young to be sent to an approved school. While in Edinburgh I also did a one-year post-graduate diploma in education at Moray House College of Education, now part of Edinburgh University.

 Next, I flew to Toronto, where I taught at the Toronto French School and went canoeing in the north of Ontario, where I spotted a bear, although he didn't spot me.

I returned to London, this time teaching at London Business Colleges, teaching English to foreign businessmen (and women, but not many of those).

 


Me and my dog, Meg
 

  
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
 

  After two years I emigrated to France, living in a small village in the Brie area and commuting to Paris, where I taught at the University and also at a language school located in Montparnasse. My three years in France meant that I became very fluent in the language, learned a lot about wine and food and developed an abiding love of Jacques Brel.

 Back in London again, I had a change of career and began working as an editor, first with a book packaging company and then, glorious day, at Departures magazine, first as a freelance editor, then as Managing Editor and finally as Deputy Editor and Features Editor. Departures was a very beautifully produced travel magazine and through it I was able to commission some of the writers and photographers I most admired, including Thomas Kenneally, Norman Lewis, Howard Jacobson, Douglas Dunn, Ian Jack, Charles Nicholl, Tim Page, Bob Holmes, Frans Lanting and Tom Kelly.

 I then moved to Country Living magazine where I was initially Deputy Editor, and then Food & Drink Editor on a part-time basis. I was elected to the committee of the UK Guild of Food Writers, and while at Country Living I won a Glenfiddich Award for Visual Content of the magazine's food and drink pages.

At this time I was also able to combine my passion for travel with my own freelance writing, contributing travel articles to a wide variety of UK newspapers and magazines - which I continue to do.  

 In 1999, I left London to live in the west of Ireland, near the River Shannon, and there I completed my first book, Irish Days, a collection of oral histories with specially commissioned portraits of the principal dozen story-tellers by photographer Tom Kelly.

 I now write food, travel and general freelance articles for Irish magazines and newspapers - such as the Irish Independent - in addition to UK publications. I have been treasurer of the Irish Food Writers' Guild for the last three years, and write a monthly wine column in Business Plus magazine.

 As well as my writing work I enjoy teaching English as a foreign language to children and I occasionally run creative writing courses for adults. In 2006 I was nominated for an awards scheme run by Galway County Council to recognise individual contributions to the arts within the county.

 Poetry has always been a major interest of mine, and I always look forward to the gatherings of two very active local poetry groups. My arrival in Ireland coincided with my winning the Political Satire Prize at the first Strokestown International Poetry Festival.

 When not tending my vegetable garden, I am to be found working away at my current project - writing a history of food in Ireland.

 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
             
             

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  Text and images Copyright © Margaret Hickey 2006.  Web site design by Merrily Harpur ~ www.harpur.org