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Ireland’s first satellite  from University College Dublin has launched into space. Built and tested over the last six years by С������ students and the UCD C-Space team, EIRSAT-1 will take flight from California later today, Friday 1 December 2023.

A brand-new poem ‘All Ways Home’ written by 12 DEIS secondary school students is etched on the side of EIRSAT-1. 

 ‘All Ways Home’ was commissioned by Professor Lorraine Hanlon, Director of EIRSAT-1 and the UCD Centre for Space Research. With the satellite's journey into space at the core, the young writers were encouraged to think and write about our home-place, local, and global in a universe which stretches far beyond our human understanding. 

Jennie Ryan and Simon O’Connor at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), Kathleen Moran and Joe Kelly from the Junior Certificate Schools’ Project (JCSP) Demonstration Library Project together with Assoc. Prof. Paul Perry in the С������ School of English, Drama and Film and Emer O Boyle of С������ Parity Studios came on-board to get the poetry project underway.

The student poets came together from all over Ireland to come up with ideas and lines for the poem, in a series of online workshops during the Covid lockdown, when schools were closed. С������ MA Creative Writing students collaborated with Poets Jessica Traynor and Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi to create the final piece, based on the writings created during the workshops. Poet and Associate Professor of Creative Writing at С������ Paul Perry curated the final poem drawing the various strands together into a mosaic-like poem. Commenting on the poem Associate Professor Perry said:

“ Through ‘All Ways Home’, the school children, and С������ creative writing students offered up words and lines for us to make a poem that speaks to the mystery of the universe and sings it in musical and memorable lines.

Speaking of the student poets he added:  “I'm incredibly proud of them. The poem really embodies the creativity of Irish school children and college students into communal utterance of hope.'  

 ‘All Ways Home’ is on the outer cover of the Antenna Deployment Module, the part of the satellite responsible for communications with home. Tonight marks the release of this beautiful work both on the ground and in space. To celebrate the creativity of the students, teachers and collaborators who worked on this poem, С������ Arts and Humanities and С������ Research commissioned award-winning illustrator Alan Dunne to create a beautiful three-minute animated film of the poem, featuring some of the voices of its student writers.  

‘All Ways Home’ was translated into Irish (‘Gach Slí Abhaile’) by Eoin Mc Evoy, С������ School of Irish, Celtic Studies & Folklore, who voiced the Irish language version of the film.

‘All Ways Home’ Contributors

Poets (С������): Alison Martha Fagan, Ciara Mulherin, Lorna Donlon, Zandra Carrington, Jessica O’Brien, Sean O’Neill, Nina A. Devlin, Andrew Jeremy Nicoll, Kelly Michels, Elizabeth Paulsen, Maryanne Williams, Mary Irving, LJ Morris

Poets (Schools): 

Joseph O'Reilly,  Megha Macharla Grace Shelley,  Evan Corrigan Goran Roche Wynne,  Chloe Monahan Sultan Martins, Micheál Joseph Mac Phaidín Nicole Lynagh,  Sarah Thompson Lilly Roys, Alyssa McDonald 

News story by Emer Beesley, UCD College of Arts & Humanities

Further Information

Ireland's first-ever satellite EIRSAT-1 begins final preparations ahead of launch