Writing

Academic Writing

Monograph

• Oceanic Connections: The Sea in Irish and Caribbean Poetry, Syracuse University Press, 2025.

Edited Collection

• Seamus Heaney’s Mythmaking, co-edited with Ian Hickey, Routledge. 2023

Journal Articles

• “‘another bizarre joke’: E.A. Markham’s Honest Ulsterman Poems, 1976-1978” Honest Ulsterman, June 2023.
• “The Mythic Sea in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Poetry” Comparative Literature. Vol. 74 no. 3, 2022.
• “‘Like Poetry or freedom / Leaning in from Sea’: A Reconsideration of the Topography of Heaney’s Poetry.” Irish Studies Review, vol. 28, no. 2, 2020.
• “The Sea and Memory: Poetic Reconsiderations of the Zong Massacre.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature. vol. 57, no. 2, 2022. [first published October 2019.]

Book Chapters

• “‘Talk about defamiliarization!’: Seamus Heaney and French” Seamus Heaney and the Art of Translation, Routledge, 2026.
• co-written with Eugene McNulty, “Ireland.” Europe in British Literature and Culture. Edited by Petra Rau and Will Rossiter. Cambridge University Press, 2024.
• Mythic Water in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry. Seamus Heaney’s Mythmaking. Edited by Ian Hickey and Ellen Howley. Routledge, 2023.

Encyclopaedia Entries

• “Grace Nichols: i is a long-memoried woman.” The Literary Encyclopedia. Ed. Melanie Otto. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean, 2019.
• “David Dabydeen: Turner: New and Selected Poems” The Literary Encyclopedia. Ed. Melanie Otto. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean, 2019.

Book Reviews

• “Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean [Review]” Irish Studies Review, 2023.
• “Memories of the Classical Underworld in Irish and Caribbean Poetry. [Review]” Irish Studies Review. 2023.
• “Stephanie Pocock Boeninger, Literary Drownings: Postcolonial Memory in Irish and Caribbean Writing. [Review]“ Journal of West Indian Literature. Vol. 30 no. 1. 2021.
• “Cultural memory in Seamus Heaney’s late work. [Review]” Irish Studies Review. Vol. 24 no. 4. pp. 542-44, 2020.
• “Poetry in the Everyday.” Irish Literary Supplement: A Review of Irish Books 37.1 (2017): 16.

Other Writing

• Ellen’s Substack.
• “Jane Austen wrote six novels. Here’s how we rank them” RTE Brainstorm, 2025.
• “Eight of the most romantic poems to read to your love this Valentine’s Day.” The Conversation, 2025.
• “The Green Credentials of the Wicked Witch of the West: An Ecocritical Perspective on Wicked (2024)” Irish Humanities Alliance, 2024.
• “Entangled Islands exhibition explores the history of Irish people in the Caribbean – an expert review“, The Conversation, 2023.
• “Taylor Swift’s songs are full of literary references – so what do they tell us?“, RTE Brainstorm, 2023.
• “Why are politicians so fond of quoting Seamus Heaney?” RTE Brainstorm, 2022.
• “James Joyce in the Caribbean“, Irish Times, 2022.
• “The Lure of the Sea during Lockdown“, RTE Brainstorm, 2021.
• “Why are We Turning to Poetry in the Middle of a Pandemic?” RTE Brainstorm, 2020.
• “The ‘Planet Ocean’ Workshop” Irish Humanities Alliance, 2019. [Co-authored with Tomas Buitendijk]
• “What’s Happening on Poetry Day Ireland?” HeadStuff, 2018.
• “To Travel is to Return: Poetry Review” HeadStuff, 2018.
• “Poets, Nobel Laureates, Friends” HeadStuff, 2018.