She’s one of Ireland’s best-known and best-loved poets, who helped lift the nation’s sprits during the Covid pandemic, with her weekly poetry slot on the Brendan O’Connor Show on RTÉ Radio One.

But, as Rita-Ann Higgins told a packed house at Ballybane Library on Saturday last, she didn’t start reading until she was 22.

At the Ireland Reads 2025 event, hosted by the library, she explained that, as a youngster, she was “able to read but I didn’t see the point in it”.

That all changed in 1977 when she got tuberculosis and was confined to Merlin Park Hospital.

“I found the days long and miserable. One day I had a visit from friends, Anne and Mark Kennedy, and they brought up a skinny little book called Animal Farm. I loved it, I loved the revolution in it. I went on to read Wuthering Heights. I could see Catherine and Heathcliff on the moors.”

After that, she “knew that the books had to keep coming”.

The poet, playwright and essayist had advice for those present.

“Allow reading to become your friend. Reading is the best superfoods for the brain. It’s said it can help prevent cognitive decline. I was a very slow reader and I’m here today for the slow reader, the reader who is struggling. There is an assumption that reading is easy and that everyone can read. Reading requires practice but it pays off a hundred-fold. Please keep at it. You will never regret it.”

She explained how she improved her vocabulary in the early days of reading by writing words on pieces of cardboard and sticking them around the kitchen.

“As I worked I would say them and spell them out for myself.  Words like ‘gregarious’ ‘currant’ ‘familiar’ ’paediatrician’. In no time my vocabulary was increasing and when I was reading I was meeting more and more words that I knew.”

Rita-Ann added that she once paid her daughter Jennifer to read Flaubert’s’ Madame Bovary without realising what a misogynist Gustave Flaubert was.

These days, she gets her grandchildren to read to her.

“It’s not all clear sailing, sometimes I have to tell them a short scene from The Wolf Man by way of entrapment. Then they have to read a few pages from their books. What matters to me is that they will be able to read and that they will love reading. How they get there is another story.”

Rita-Ann described how reading opened doors to other worlds for her.

“Getting into other people’s lives through books was mindblowing. I found myself thinking about characters while I was away from the book. I feel privileged to be able to read, I feel it’s a right as well – a human right.  Never be afraid of words. They are as tough as old boots. Words are yours for the reading.”

Rita-Ann also read from her works, while several guests either read from their own works or from books that had inspired them. Those who read included her grandsons Cooper and Jackson.

And she had a final piece of advice on the benefits of reading: “Déanann an léitheoireacht maitheas duit. Ligeann tú do scith agus feabhsaíonn sé do mbheabhair-shláinte. Téigh ar strae I leabhar maith, mar sin.”

Pictured: Rita Ann Higgins, pictured with her grandson Jackson Higgins at Ballybane Library during his reading for the Ireland Reads Day.