Poet and theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama’s work centres around themes of language, power, conflict and religion. Working fluently on the page and in public, he is a compelling poet and skilled speaker, teacher and group worker. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being Studios. From 2014-2019 he was the leader of the Corrymeela Community, Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation community. With undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in theology, multiple professional qualifications in conflict mediation (specialising in groups), he also holds a PhD (Poetry & Theology) from the University of Glasgow.
When BBC journalist William Crawley introduced Pádraig on the stage to deliver a TEDx talk on Story, Crawley said, “He’s probably the best public speaker I know.” Profiling Ó Tuama in The New Yorker, journalist and poet Eliza Grizwold wrote “Poetry, for him, is the language the heart speaks not when it reaches for some externalized divinity but when it seeks to understand itself.”