We are proud to take part in a UK-Ireland creative initiative to mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth in partnership with the British Embassy Dublin and the National Library of Ireland.
This literature-focused project will comprise a senior cycle schools’ network organised and co-ordinated by Fergal Kilkenny of St Louis’s Secondary School Dundalk. Connections with Irish author, Maria Edgeworth, are highlighted and celebrated.
In 2023–24, previous project iterations involved approximately 1,600 school children from over 75 schools across the UK and Ireland.
In 2025, the project involves students from 63 schools, with a total of 1,800 senior cycle students across Ireland and the four nations of the UK.
Students’ engagement activities have included:
- In-person and online Blackout Poetry Workshops led by the National Library of Ireland.
Project outcomes
- Creation of 1,800 creative postcards by young people from 63 schools across Ireland and the four nations of the UK, based on blackout poetry exercises led by the National Library of Ireland which students will then exchange with each other.
- A print and digital catalogue.
- Exhibition of all the young peoples’ work in Dublin in the National Library of Ireland on 16 December 2025, displaying the 1,800 postcards from Ireland and the UK to mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth.
Find out more about our previous creative postcard iterations.