Mary Nelson
born in Northern Ireland, 1971, Mary studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduating in 1994 with first class honours in performance. She continued her studies as a postgraduate in the Opera Course at the London Royal Schools Joint Vocal Faculty, recently graduating with a dip.RAM, the academy's highest award. While at the Royal Academy of Music Mary was awarded numerous prizes, including the Henry Cummings Prize (awarded to the singer gaining the highest result in their final recital), the Oratorio Prize and the Isabelle Jay Prize for operatic arias. She has also been the recipient of major awards including the countess of Munster Musical Trust, Ian Fleming Charitable Trust and Sybil Tutton Award. During her studies she has participated in master classes with Heather Harper, Robert Tear, Sir Colin Davis, Nickolai Gedda and Leonard Slatkin. Mary has recorded a CD for the Oxford Classic label.

Kathleen Lombard
born 1962 in Mallow, County Cork. As a mature student she completed an Arts Degree in English and German in UCC. Last year she completed an M.Phil in Anglo-Irish Literature in Trinity. During this course she undertook a major study of Kate O'Brien's Irish based novels. Her subsequent thesis centred on how these novels reflected social history in the period 1 850-1 940. She currently works as a civil servant in the Department of Health in Dublin.

María de la Cinta Ramblado Minero
born in Spain in 1971 Maria graduated with a degree in English Philology from the University of Huelva, Spain. After finishing her degree as an Erasmus student in the University of Limerick, where her interest in Kate O'Brien awoke, she spent a year as a foreign language assistant in Northern Ireland, a time she also devoted to the reading of Kate O'Brien's novels. At the moment she is a postgraduate student in the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Limerick, where she is striving toward a PhD degree in Comparative Literature.

Gearóid O Tuathaigh
a native of Limerick City, Gearóid has written extensively on Irish culture, language and politics in 19th and 20thC Ireland, most notably in his two publications Ireland Before The Famine and The Age of deValera, the latter being co-authored with Joe Lee. Formerly dean of The Faculty of Arts and Vice-President of The National University of Ireland, Galway, he is presently Professor of History at NUI, Galway and Chairman of Udaras na Gaeltachta.

Catriona Clear
was educated at the Presentation Convent, Sexton Street, Limerick. She lectures in 19th and 20thC history in University College Galway. Among her publications are research on nuns in 19thC Ireland, women's work in 20thC Ireland and homelessness and poverty in the same period.

Evelyn Conlon
was born in Co. Monaghan in 1952. She has lived in Australia and has travelled extensively in Asia, America and Europe. A fiction writer and reviewer, her short stories have been anthologised in Ireland, Britain, France, Canada and the USA, Her short story collections include My Head is Opening and Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour; novels are Stars in the Daytime and A Glassful of Letters to be published by Blackstaff in March 1998. She is a regular commentator on the arts on national radio.

Laurie Taylor
grew up in Liverpool and enjoyed a short spell as a professional actor with John Littlewood's Theatre Workshop before taking up an academic career. He was a professor of politics and sociology at York University. He has written ten books on everything from crime and punishment to the nature of identity in the modern world. His radio works includes Stop the Week, The Radio Programme and currently The Afternoon Shift. He writes a weekly satirical column on university life for the Times Higher Education Supplement and a weekly column for the New Statesman.