Limerick Literary Festivalin honour of Kate O’Brien

February 201723rd - 26th

T he festival, formerly known as Kate O’Brien Weekend, is this year celebrating its 33rd

edition. The event continues to honour the life and works of the Limerick author, while attracting prominent participants from all over the world. This year, we have gathered up to 20 participants from Ireland, England, Italy and the US in five different venues in Limerick City.

The Festival will officially be opened on Friday, February 24th at 6pm in Limerick City Gallery of Art in Pery Square by journalist Olivia O’Leary. It will be followed by “As Music and Splendour” recital with bass-baritone Kevin Neville.

On Thursday night, in conjunction with Chez le Fab, by the river at Arthur’s Quay Park, UL Professor and author Eoin Devereux will deliver an illustrated talk on Oscar Wilde and Morrissey. Expect some great music (& wine).

Earlier on Friday, in association with The Granary, Limerick City Library, we are delighted to welcome Martin Dyar and Donal Ryan, for what will be a free event.

On Saturday, in Limerick City Gallery of Art, we welcome poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa, novelist Mary Lawson, historian Thomas Pakenham, prize-winning writer Mike McCormack, Italian novelist Francesca Melandri in conversation with Mary Coll and esteemed poet Richard Blanco. Marie Hackett, Honorary French Consul in Limerick, will pay tribute to the late French author Michel Deon.

On Saturday morning, in Ormston House, Patrick Street, we are delighted to introduce Christopher Lloyd and Limerick author Roisin Meaney to our younger audience as a free public event.

On Sunday morning, in the Lime Tree Theatre, Dr Cinta Ramblado will present “Kate O’Brien’s Versions of Spain”. It will be followed by renowned musician Bill Whelan and broadcaster Liz Nolan revealing their choice of books in Desert Island Books, including “the book I would never lend”. And finally, popular novelist Cecelia Ahern will be in conversation with esteemed author Donal Ryan.

We will, once again, be presenting the Kate O’Brien Award to best novel/short story collection by a debut Irish female writer.

Limerick Literary Festival gratefully acknowledges all our sponsors including the Arts Council, Limerick City and County Council and local businesses. We hope you will enjoy the 2017 edition of the Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien, celebrating writers, artists, books and readers.

11:00am : Readings, featuring Martin Dyar & Donal Ryan @ The Granary, Limerick City Library (free event)

6:00pm : Official Opening by Olivia O’Leary @ Limerick City Gallery of Art

7:00pm : As Music and Splendour recital, featuring Kevin Neville @ Limerick City Gallery of Art

11:00am : Animated & interactive History of the World by educationalist Christopher Lloyd (6-106 yrs old) @ Ormston House (free event)

12:00pm : Storytelling with Limerick author Roisin Meaney @ Ormston House (3-6 yrs old)

@ Limerick City Gallery of Art

10:00am : Doireann Ní Ghríofa

11:00am : Mary Lawson

12:00pm : Thomas Pakenham

1:00pm : Tribute to the late Michel Deon

2:00pm : Mike McCormack

3:00pm : Francesca Melandri in conversation with Mary Coll

4:00pm : Richard Blanco

@ The Lime Tree Theatre, Mary Immaculate College

10:00am : “Kate O’Brien’s Versions of Spain” by Dr Cinta Ramblado

11:00am : Desert Island Books with Bill Whelan & Liz Nolan

12:00pm : Interview with Cecelia Ahern by Donal Ryan

* Presentation of the 2017 Kate O’Brien Award

Thursday 23rd February

Friday 24th February

Saturday 25th February Sunday 26th February

8:00pm : Talk by Eoin Devereux on Oscar Wilde and Morrissey @ Chez le Fab, Arthur’s Quay Park (free event)

Eoin Devereux

Olivia O’Leary

KevinNeville

Olivia O’Leary is a broadcaster and journalist. Born in Carlow, she joined RTÉ as a news reporter in 1972 and was Belfast correspondent, 1975-76. She began writing for the ‘Irish Times’ newspaper in 1978 and reported from Argentina on the Falklands War. In 1980, Olivia O’Leary became a presenter on RTÉ’s flagship current affairs programme Today Tonight. She left to work on BBC’s Newsnight, and was made that programme’s first senior female presenter in 1985. She currently contributes a column to RTÉ Radio 1’s Drivetime. Her publications include Politicians and Other Animals (2004) and Party Animals (2006).

Professor Eoin Devereux is Associate Professor in Sociology and Assistant Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Limerick. His main teaching and research interests are focused on Media, Popular Music, Fan Studies and Media Audiences. He has published extensively on media representations of poverty and exclusion. Professor Devereux is a co-founder/director of two multidisciplinary research clusters at University of Limerick namely the Popular Music and Popular Culture Research Cluster and the Power, Discourse and Society Research Cluster.

Kevin Neville is a bass-baritone from Limerick city. He completed his BA (Hons) in Music and English Literature at Trinity College Dublin in 2013. While attending Trinity, he studied singing externally with Olive Cowpar from Limerick. In 2015, he completed his MMus with First Class Honours under the tutelage of Emmanuel Lawler at the Conservatory of Music and Drama D.I.T. and was awarded the Conservatory Gold Medal. He has also been awarded the Senior Vocal Bursary in Limerick, the Capuchin Cup & Bursary in Cork and the Lieder Prize in Dublin.

Roisin Meaney was born in Listowel, Co. Kerry. She has lived in England, Africa and the USA; she now lives in Limerick. She began writing in 2001 and her first novel, The Daisy Picker, won a ‘Write a Bestseller’ competition and was published in 2004. Since then she has become the author of several bestselling novels, including Two Fridays in April, After The Wedding, The Last Week of May, Love in the Making and One Summer, as well as several books for children. Her books have been translated into Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German and Italian.

Richard holds a first class honours degree in Music and French from NUI Maynooth and a Masters in performance (piano accompaniment) from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where he was also a student on the repetiteur course and subsequently held a repetiteur fellowship.Richard was a trainee repetiteur at English National Opera and since then he has worked with companies including Northern Ireland Opera, Wide Open Opera, Opera Theatre Company and Lyric Opera. He has played with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the Orchestra of English National Opera.

RoisinMeaney

RichardMcGrath

Christopher Lloyd graduated with a double first-class degree in history from Cambridge in 1990 and went on to become the Technology Editor for The Sunday Times. He left in 2000 to become CEO of Immersive Education in Oxford before becoming an author in 2006. He came up with the concept for What on Earth Happened: The Complete Story of the Planet (Bloomsbury, 2008), which has sold more than 500,000 copies. He established What on Earth Publishing Ltd in Spring 2010. He divides his time between lecturing, writing and running his business.

ChristopherLloyd

Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual writer working both in Irish and English. She frequently participates in cross-disciplinary collaborations, fusing poetry with film, dance, music, and visual art. Awards for her writing include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Michael Hartnett Prize, the Ireland Chair of Poetry bursary and a Wigtown Award for Gaelic poetry (Scotland). Her third book Clasp was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Award 2016. She writes “with tenderness and unflinching curiosity” (Poetry Magazine, Chicago).

DoireannNí Ghríofa

Born in Sligo, Martin Dyar grew up in Swinford in County Mayo. A graduate of NUIG and TCD, his poetry has received a number of honours, including the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2009, and the Strokestown International Poetry Award in 2001. In 2010 he was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. He has also been a writer in residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. His debut collection, Maiden Names, published by Arlen House, was shortlisted for the 2014 Piggott Prize. He has received two Arts Council Literature Bursary Awards, the most recent in 2013.

MartinDyar

Mary Lawson was born in Blackwell, Ontario, Canada. Moving to England after graduating from McGill University in Montreal, Mary began writing when her children went to school. Crow Lake, her first novel, sold in 25 countries. It spent 75 weeks on the bestseller list in Canada, won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and was chosen as a Book of the Year by the New York Times, The Sunday Times and The Washington Post. The Other Side of the Bridge, her second novel, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was a Richard and Judy Summer Read in the UK. Her latest novel, Road Ends, published to critical acclaim and was a finalist for the Folio Prize.

MaryLawson

Recent winner of the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize for Fiction for his third novel Solar Bones, Mike McCormack is an award-winning novelist and short story writer from Mayo. His previous work includes Getting it in the Head (1995), Notes from a Coma (2005), which was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award, and Forensic Songs (2012). In 1996 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and in 2007 he was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship.

MikeMcCormack

Thomas Pakenham is a historian, arborist and author who wrote the critically acclaimed The Scramble for Africa, which won the WH Smith Award and the Alan Paton Award. He is also the author of The Boer War, The Mountains of Rasselas (Orion, 1998) and The Year of Liberty (Orion, 1997). Thomas is the chairman of the Irish Tree Society, and loves planting trees for both profit and decoration. His latest book The Company of Trees: A Year in a Lifetime’s Quest, is published by Weidenfeld (September 2015). Thomas lives in County Westmeath, Ireland, with his wife.

ThomasPakenham

Francesca Melandri was born in Rome in 1964. She started writing very young, working first as a screenwriter, and has worked on films and television series, as well as a number of prize winning documentaries. In 2010 she published her first novel, Eva dorme (Eva sleeps), set in the border regions of Northern Italy and Austria, a sweeping story about family, forgiveness, conflict and the search for truth. The novel, which won several literary prizes in 2010 and 2011, has been translated into German, Dutch, French and English. Her second novel, Più alto del mare, was published in 2012 and it has also won several literary prizes.

FrancescaMelandri

Bill Whelan has worked extensively in theatre and film. His compositional work in film includes original scores for Dancing At Lughnasa starring Meryl Streep, Some Mother’s Son starring Helen Mirren and Lamb starring Liam Neeson. Bill was honoured with the 1997 Grammy Award for ‘Best Musical Show Album’ for his Riverdance CD having gone Platinum in the US, Ireland and Australia. Riverdance The Show has been seen live by more than 25 million people and by a television audience of nearly 2 billion. Bill holds two honorary Doctorates and was awarded a fellowship by the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Liz Nolan hails from Dublin, and trained in voice, oboe and piano at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Following a degree in English literature (TCD Hons.) and M.Phil. in Music (DIT/TCD), Liz was appointed academic lecturer and singing teacher at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. In 2001 RTÉ lyric fm beckoned, where Liz has presented a wealth of key shows including Classic Drive, A World of Song and Lunchtime Classics, alongside numerous acclaimed arts features. She now presents Liz Nolan’s Lyric Notes, 10-12pm on 96-99 RTÉ lyric fm.

Richard Blanco was born in Madrid and immigrated to the United States as an infant with his Cuban-exile family. His collections of poetry include City of a Hundred Fires (1998), which won the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize; Directions to the Beach of the Dead (2005), winner of the PEN/American Beyond Margins Award; Looking for the Gulf Motel (2012), winner of the Tom Gunn Award, the Maine Literary Award, and the Paterson Prize; One Today (2013); Boston Strong (2013); and For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey having served as the fifth inaugural poet of the United States in 2013.

RichardBlanco

Liz Nolan

BillWhelan

Cecelia Ahern was born and grew up in Dublin. At twenty-one, she wrote her first novel PS, I Love You, which was sold to forty-seven countries. The film of the same title, starred Hilary Swank in the leading role. PS, I Love You was one of the biggest-selling debut novels of 2004, reaching number 1 in Ireland and in the UK Sunday Times bestseller list. She is now published in nearly fifty countries, and her novels have sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Two of her books have been adapted as films and she has created several TV series, including the Emmy award winning ABC comedy series, Samantha Who?

Donal Ryan is the author of three number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won three Irish Book Awards, the EU Prize for Literature and the Guardian First Book Award. His debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was shortlisted for the Impac Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013 and was recently voted Irish Book of the Decade. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages and is on the Leaving Certificate prescribed and comparative lists. Donal holds a fellowship in creative writing at the University of Limerick.

Dr Cinta Ramblado is senior lecturer in Spanish and Head of the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at the University of Limerick. Born and educated in Spain, she came to Limerick to pursue doctoral studies on the works of Kate O’Brien more than two decades ago. Since then, her work has taken different directions, but with a constant emphasis on gender and memory; as part of this, Kate O’Brien and her Spanish connection have always remained closed to her heart.

DonalRyan

Dr Cinta Ramblado

Cecelia Ahern

Dates

February 23rd - February 26th 2017

Venues

Limerick City Gallery of Art, The Lime Tree Theatre, Ormston House, The Granary, Limerick City Library & Chez le Fab.

Tickets

Weekend Pass €125 inclusive of all events. Discounted Weekend passes are available at €100 to OAP, Students and Unwaged.

Friday Opening & Recital : €15 (concession €12)

Kate O’Brien Lecture - Cecelia Ahern in conversation with Donal Ryan : €15 (concession €12)

All other sessions : €12

Booking for tickets can be made at the Lime Tree Theatre.

Box office : 061 774 774 or online at www.limetreetheatre.ie

Tickets are also available for purchase at the door for individual sessions. Please come early if buying your tickets on the day at the door!

We gratefully acknowledge the invaluable support of our sponsors :

Sheila Deegan, Marie Hackett, Eileen O’Connor, Vivienne McKechnie, Eimear Redmond, Denise Whelan, Anne Marie Gill, Valerie Dolan, Donal Ryan.

Design : www.juleshackett.com

Partners

Organising Committee

The Arts Council, Limerick City & County Council, O’Mahony’s Booksellers, No.1 Pery Square, Leahys & Partners, Kleiser Pianos, Lawless Flowers, Country Choice, Geon Engineering, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fine’s Jewellers, Fergusons Hearing Aid Clinic, Irish Handcrafts, Tadhg Kearney Jewellers, Thomas Street Framing Centre, La Piccola Italia, Helen O’Donnell, Bella Italia, Brian Geary Motors, Savins Music Centre, Widdess Pharmacy & Mary Coll.

A: 14 Thomas Street Limerick • T: 061 413034

Stud

y fo

r Kat

e O

’Bri

en (1

997)

, Oil

on C

anva

s by

John

Shi

nnor

s

www.limerickliteraryfestival.com