Karl O'Hanlon was born in Belfast in 1985, and now lives in Co. Kildare. He teaches English at Maynooth University. His poetry has appeared in The Irish Times, TLS, Poetry, PN Review, and elsewhere. His pamphlet And Now They Range was published by Guillemot Press in 2016. He has appeared on BBC Radio 4 with Jason-Allen Paisant, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Eavan Boland Prize.

"Brilliantly sharp, shifting use of language lights up a demanding, intriguing subject, which includes the encounters between the new Irish state and modernity, between diplomacy and chaos. Herron confronts a segment of the past that seems closer every time we look, a cast of characters so at odds with history that only poetry can cope with them and their time." -Eilean Ni Chuilleanain"About halfway through Karl O'Hanlon's marvellous Herron's Dream Diary, I was slowed to a stop by the following lines: 'a family man, upright, moderate in learning and wealth, / was fashioning a whip out of sunlight to beat a slave to death.' The idea that the mildest among us would be willing torturers under the right conditions is an idea we have all, unfortunately, learned and re-learned. But that the whip is fashioned 'out of sunlight'! The world and social order that made the torturer are contained and revealed by that phrase, and the old idea is made new. A poet who can do that must be read. This is a brilliant debut." -Shane McCrae