“The urgency of the day rings in my ears 

into the night, revisiting and revision 

of guidelines and protocols, 

roiling in turmoiled dream.” 

Have you ever felt like this after finishing a day in your community pharmacy?  

It’s a snippet from a poem called ‘Teóra’ that gives a snapshot into Irish pharmacist Noelle Lynskey’s career as a community pharmacist.   

It’s one of 50 poems featuring in her debut anthology ‘Featherweight’ that was published last month. 

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“I started to dabble in writing and continued to do it for many years,” she tells C+D. “It took you away from the headspace of pharmacy. A lot of people wouldn’t know I was doing it as it was really just for myself.” 

Lynskey grew up reading T. S. Eliot, William Wordsworth, Seamus Heaney and Emily Dickinson. But ultimately it was a love for chemistry that tipped her to go into pharmacy upon leaving school rather than pursuing a literary career. 

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“I couldn't see myself working in a lab. So, I visited my own local community pharmacist and I spoke to her about the job and what it entailed. It was just taking a chance on it.  

“For summer jobs I worked in some pharmacies and always loved the interaction with people and the community care part of it. That’s sustained me throughout all the changes of our profession.” 

Family legacy 

Lynskey grew up in Strokestown in County Roscommon, before completing her pharmacy degree at Trinity College Dublin and working in Waterford for a couple of years. 

She moved to Portumna in County Galway in 1985 with her newlywed husband.  

“We both studied pharmacy together, and he was the third generation of a family pharmacy business. I’ve been here since working and bearing three daughters, two of whom are pharmacists.” 

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Despite splitting with her husband 20 years ago, Lynskey continues working at Hayes & Hayes Pharmacy, and one of her daughters now helps to run the community pharmacy after moving from hospital pharmacy. 

The pharmacy has been there since 1915, and a local history project Lynskey took part in revealed what the pharmacy was like when it opened. 

“I have the first prescription books from 1915, so I used the information in that to look at the arrival of the Spanish Flu to Ireland.  

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“I found in October 1918 there was quite a wave locally here. The dispensary system was dispensing drugs directly through a doctor, so we didn't have the majority of the medications going out of the pharmacy.  

“Euthymol toothpaste was available in 1915. And there was a lot of use of opioids and different dilutions of things that became poisons very quickly in the last century.” 

Living with no regrets 

Despite Lynskey’s love for pharmacy, an active life outside of the career saw her get involved in the local arts scene. She was the director for Shoreline Arts Festival for 15 years until stepping down last year, a festival celebrating literature, visual arts, drama and music. 

She also found her poetry community through a few local writing groups in County Galway, one of which she founded. 

“We would have poetry appreciation readings, and I built up a number of poems myself. I submitted some to literary magazines, but I wasn’t necessarily eager to publish.” 

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Even though she wasn’t too focused on being published, her poems have been featured in The Irish Times, RTE Sunday Miscellany and Bloodaxe, the latter of which she was particularly “delighted” about.  

She spent years performing at festivals and literary events and in 2021 was named the Poet Laureate for Strokestown. It was around this time thought that she decided to pursue her interest in literature further and go back to university.

She completed a master’s in creative writing part-time at the University of Limerick, a course run by novelist Joseph O’Connor who is the brother of singer Sinead O’Connor. 

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“I spent two years every Monday morning doing a three-hour workshop on writing. I used to pinch myself as what a way it is to spend a Monday, talking about writing and having guest writers come in. It was a treat. 

“That gave me an impetus to put something together. I said, ‘I’ve come to a certain age, what would I regret?’ I’d regret not having poems between the covers of a book. So, I’m like a child with a new toy now it has launched.” 

Trusting environments 

‘Featherweight’ does not stick to one theme across the whole collection, with Lynskey admitting she wanted to “clear the decks of the older ones” she had not published before. 

“Some of the poems are ones I've written quite a while ago. Because it's my first collection and I've been writing for so many years, I went with my youth and there are a lot of poems from that time.  

“There are some recent poems I wrote during lockdown.  

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“One is in relation to delivering from the pharmacy. One is about an old workhouse here and it's a building I'm really interested in and its history. The most recent one was a poem I wrote when the writer Edna O’Brien died. So, there's quite a span.” 

Lynskey says she’s “never finished writing” but has found putting words down on paper hasn’t always been the best way to refine her style. 

“Somebody at a festival I was at said that a writer is always writing, but not necessarily with a pen in their hand. You're thinking in a writerly fashion, reading poetry, short stories or a novel – it all fills in.  

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“It filters into your own practice and work. In the writing groups, we do a lot of workshopping of each other's work because sometimes you don't see the error that you're making. We do that in a very trusting environment, so that is how I practice.” 

She also finds not having a regimented plan of when to write helps her too. 

“I don't have a strict discipline of saying I work every day at something. But a lot of the time I will write something, and it could be 60 lines. But it might end up as a 20-line poem in the end.”  

Multi-disciplinary plans ahead 

Lynskey finds that her career in pharmacy has lent a hand in inspiring her poems. 

“In a small community, you get to know the families. There’s an intimacy we’re party to as a community pharmacy.  

“I might not know the intimate details of their lives, but I would know intimate details of their health. That has me lean into the life stories and background of people that feeds into some of the poems.” 

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After a mini-tour launching ‘Featherweight’ at the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, along with readings in Portumna and Galway city, Lynskey has plans to continue releasing poetry while she still works two days a week at Hayes & Hayes. 

“It’s gone very well so far and I would definitely hope to do it again! I hadn’t anticipated the events to happen out of it. I was contacted by a sculptor about a proposal in Strokestown to add words to his sculpture, but that may not get accepted.

"I have readings at different festivals coming up. I’ve been interviewed for a poetry programme on radio coming out in the autumn.  

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“A friend, who was my first boss in a pharmacy, went back to college to do fine art. We applied for an artist in residence in Connemara which we will go do in October for two weeks. We’re trying to bring something together that links the science and art heads. 

 “Now I’m semi-retired and I have more time, it’s a whole new little world!”