Tag: Literature

Fingal Poetry Festival 2024

Fingal Poetry Festival 2024

The Fingal Poetry Festival 2024 takes place from 13th to 15th September 2024 in the beautiful seaside town of Skerries in North County Dublin. I’m delighted to be reading from my latest poetry collection Hare’s Breath (Salmon Poetry, 2023) at an event in Ardgillan Castle Library at lunchtime on Sunday 15th September. The reading follows directly after the Poetry Walk through Ardgillan Park, led by poet Damien Donnelly at 11am, which will round off this year’s festival.

Ardgillan Castle

I’m particularly grateful to Festival Curator, Enda Coyle-Green, for inviting me to read as I grew up just down the road in Rush and a number of the poems featured in Hare’s Breath draw on memories and impressions of growing up in that part of the world. I haven’t lived there in over thirty years so it will be a kind of homecoming for me and for the poems. I hope that you can join me for the celebration. Entry to the event is free but you can book your tickets in advance here.

The Festival offers a diverse programme including poetry walks, performances, workshops, and inclusive events for all ages. Highlights include a mandala creation, a poetry slam, family activities, and jazz performances, ending with the Ardgillan Poetry Walk on Sunday. Poets featured over the weekend include: Tony Curtis, Ceaití Ní Bhéildiúin, Lani O’Hanlon, Gormfhlaith Ní Shíocháin, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Philip Cummings, Peter Sirr, Brid Ní Mhóráin, Leontia Flynn, Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha and Damien Donnelly.

I look forward to seeing you there!

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Red Line Book Festival 2021

This year in October the Red Line Book Festival celebrates 10 years with a huge range of events, some in person, some virtual. You can view the full programme here.

I’m so happy to be hosting a real live event in the Civic Theatre (my first live event in a long time!) celebrating the short story with authors Deirdre Sullivan and Lucy Caldwell. We’ll hear short readings from both writers and then we’ll get down to the business of the short story, what it is and how it works. ‘The Beauty of Brevity’ takes place on Monday 11th October at 7pm and you can book your tickets here.

The festival is always a cracker and it will run up until 17th October. I intend to see as many events as I can during the week and there’s so much to choose from with events featuring the likes of Colm Tóibín, Kevin Power, Jane Robinson, Nell Regan, Lynn Buckle, Catherine Dunne, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Mary Dorcey, Moya Cannon, Victoria Kennefick, Jessica Traynor, Aoife Lyall, Amanda Bell, Eleanor Hooker, David Butler, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Eimear Ryan, Anrew McMillan, Seán Hewitt and many many more.

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Bray Literary Festival 2020

This year Bray Literary Festival, now in its fourth year, will be mainly an online festival. The exception will be our headline event which will be held on Thursday 17th September 2020 in the Mermaid Arts Centre in association with One City, One Book. We are delighted to present an evening of readings and discussion hosted by Dermot Bolger, featuring Christine Dwyer Hickey, author of eleven novels including Dublin’s One City, One Book 2020 choice Tatty and The Narrow Land, winner of the Walter Scott Award 2020, and Billy O’Callaghan, author of novels The Dead House and My Coney Island Baby and four short story collections, most recently The Boatman.

Tickets are limited because of social distancing guidelines so book your ticket now at the Mermaid.

Friday 18th September is Culture Night and we have a lovely event planned called “Four Poets Walk into a Bar” featuring Anne Tannam, Mark Ward, Grace Wilentz and Fiona Bolger. This event will be livestreamed on Culture Night at 7pm. Following this event there will be the announcement of the winners of this year’s poetry and fiction competitions and readings of their work.

The Festival continues on Friday 25th September at 7.30pm with the launch of The Music of What Happens, an anthology of new writing in support of Purple House edited by Festival Director, Tanya Farrelly.

The Festival continues throughout Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September with an amazing range of writers and poets reading and talking about their work. Please review the full programme for details. All of these events can be accessed through the Bray Literary Festival YouTube Channel so please subscribe to be sure you don’t miss anything.

I’m personally looking forward to hosting two events. The first, Singing in the Wild Dark, sees me chatting with poets Eleanor Hooker, Jess Traynor and Leeanne Quinn on Saturday 26th September at 2.30pm. These three poets should not be missed.

My second event is Brave New Words featuring Alice Lyons, Pat O’Connor and Marianne Lee on Sunday 27th September at 11.30am. We’ll be discussing new novels and short stories and the route to publication and much more besides.

All of these events are free to view, but we are more than happy to receive any donations you might want to make towards the future of the festival. I hope you’ll set some time aside to catch some of these extraordinary writers read and discuss their work.

BLF Committee, l to r: Phil Lynch, Ed O’Dwyer, David Butler, Tanya Farrelly (Director), Brian Kirk, Nessa O’Mahony

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