Life

A native of Ballybrit, Galway

Galway

Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...

, Higgins was one of thirteen children in a working-class household. She married in 1973 but following the birth of her second child in 1977, contracted Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, forcing her to spend an extended period in a sanatorium

Sanatorium

A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...

,

While confined, she began reading, and soon took to composing poems. She joined the Galway Writers' Workshop in 1982. Jessie Lendennie, editor of Salmon Publishing, encouraged Higgins, and oversaw the publication of her first five collections.

She was Galway County's Writer-in-Residence in 1987, Writer in Residence at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 1994-95, Writer in Residence for Offaly County Council in 1998-99. She was Green Honors Professor at Texas Christian University, in October 2000. Other awards include a Peadar O'Donnell Award in 1989, several Arts Council bursaries ‘Sunny Side Plucked’ was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She was made an honorary fellow at Hong Kong Baptist University Nov 2006.

She is a member of Aosdana, though Aosdana turned her down five times previously.

She cites the feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...

, and the Irish Republican, Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney was an Irish politician and educationalist.-Early life:Born in London, to an Irish father and English mother, she returned to Ireland with her family at the age of six and was educated in Cork...

, as role models.

She lives in Galway

Galway

Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...

 and An Spidéal

Spiddal

Spiddal is a village on the shore of Galway Bay in County Galway in Ireland. It is west of Galway city on the R336 road. Spiddal is on the eastern side of the county's Gaeltacht near Connemara, and is a tourist centre with a scenic beach, harbour, and shore fishing.-The village:The Mac...

.

Poetry

• Goddess on the Mervue Bus, 1986
• Witch in the Bushes, 1988
• Goddess and Witch, 1990
• Philomena's Revenge, 1992
• Higher Purchase, 1996
• Sunny Side Plucked, 1996
• An Awful Racket, 2001
• Throw in the Vowels:New & Selected Poems, 2005
• Ireland Is Changing Mother, 2011

Plays

• Face Licker Come Home, 1991
• God of the Hatch Man, 1992
• Colie Lally Doesn't Live in a Bucket, 1993
• Down All the Roundabouts, 1999
• The Empty Frame, 2008
• The Plastic Bag, 2008