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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20240531T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20240531T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20240428T215357Z
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SUMMARY:Rónán  Hession - 31 May
DESCRIPTION:The Society welcomes back Rónán Hession for the London launch of his latest novel. The author will be discussing Ghost Mountain with the author and TLS critic David Collard. There will be an audience Q&A followed by a book signing\, a glass of wine is included in the ticket price. \nGhost Mountain is a mountain that appears suddenly\, changing the lives of the characters in the surrounding community: the town drunk\, the Clerk of Maps (Acting)\, a retired art teacher and her dog\, a young soul and his wife who is an old soul. To them\, Ghost Mountain is unmistakably present but never truly fathomable – it is timeless\, profound\, spiritual even\, and yet resists everything projected onto it. Ghost Mountain is a novel that looks at the uncertain sense of self that we project onto the world and the absences that shadow and shape our lives. \nGod\, what a voice Ronan has. It is spectacular and already feels like a cult classic. I was absolutely hookedDonal Ryan on Leonard and Hungry Paul\n<br clear="all">\n  Speakers and performers: \n  \n David Collard\n\n\n\n  David Collard\nDavid Collard is a London-based writer\, reviewer\, researcher\, editor and occasional broadcaster\, appearing regularly in the Times Literary Supplement\, Literary Review and elsewhere\, in print and online. Previous titles include About a Girl\, a reader’s guide to Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (C B Editions\, 2016).Find out more on David’s website. \n\nRónán Hession\n\n\n\n  Rónán Hession\nRónán Hession is a writer and musician based in Dublin. His debut novel\, Leonard and Hungry Paul\, was published by Bluemoose Books in 2019. The book was shortlisted for numerous awards and chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 50 great Irish novels of the 21st century. Ronán’s second novel Panenka was widely acclaimed.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/ronan-hession-31-may/
LOCATION:Fitzrovia Chapel\, Fitzroy Place\, 2 Pearson Square\, London W1T 3BF\, London\, Fitzrovia Chapel\, Fitzroy Place\, 2 PeW1T 3BF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,interview,novel,Reading
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20230327T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20230327T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20221205T175715Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230316T092321Z
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SUMMARY:Jess Kidd and Mike Dash on the Batavia - 27 March
DESCRIPTION:We’re delighted to welcome back Jess Kidd to the Society to discuss her novel\, The Night Ship. The novel is based on the extraordinary story of the Batavia\, the flagship of the Dutch East India Company that in 1628 was wrecked on Morning Reef\, on the Houtman Abrolhos islands off western coast of Australia. Its wrecking was followed by factions in the crew instigating a massacre of most of the survivors. This was amongst the first contacts of europeans with the continent of Australia and provides a brutal alternative to the myth of Cook’s arrival bringing Enlightenment values.\n\nJess will be joined by the historian Mike Dash whose fascinating account of the Batavia story\, Batavia’s Graveyard (2002) opens up a wider history of the Dutch Republic\, seventeenth century trade and exploration. In both Dash’s history and Kidd’s novel the later discovery of the Batavia and its archeological recovery feature. Kidd establishes a connection over the span of centuries via the lives of two young characters: in 1628 a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and\, in the 1980s\, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island. Dash’s book was the invaluable starting point to Kidd’s research which led her from Haarlem and Amsterdam to Australia. The wreck was discovered in 1963\, over the next two decades\, archaeological excavations of the ship and various campsites evidenced the extent of the savage campaign. Find out more about Kidd’s research trip on her site: jesskidd.com  \n\nLyrical\, haunting\, a beautiful and elegant fictional interpretation of history\, I loved it.Kate Mosse on Kidd's The Night Ship\nScholarly and exhilarating. Not only history\, but an enthralling sea yarn and true-crime thriller.Associated Press on Dash's Batavia's Graveyard\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis event will be followed by a signing and a book sale. \n\n  Speakers:  Jess Kidd\n\n\n\n  Jess Kidd\nJess Kidd is the author of three novels and is the winner of the 2016 Costa Short Story Award. Jess’ debut novel\, Himself\, was published by Canongate in October 2016. The Hoarder\, her second novel\, hit the shelves in February 2018. Jess’s third book the marvellous Victorian\, supernatural thriller\, Things in Jars came out in 2019 featuring the intrepid detective Bridie Devine. She is also currently developing her own original TV projects with leading UK and international TV producers\, her children’s book Everyday Magic was published in 2020. Find out more on her website: jesskidd.com \n\nMike Dash\n\n\n\n  Mike Dash\nDash read history at Cambridge and went on to complete a PhD back in 1990. Since then he has enjoyed an eclectic career as a journalist\, magazine publisher and author\, in the course of which he has written five heavily-researched and acclaimed books: Tulipomania\, Batavia’s Graveyard\, Thug\, Satan’s Circus and The First Family. He has also run the Smithsonian Museum’s history blog. Find out more on his website: mikedash.com
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/jess-kidd-and-mike-dash-on-the-batavia-27-march/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Australia,book signing,history,interview,Mutiny,naval history,novel,politics,religion,research,social history,violence
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20220328T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20220328T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20220215T121744Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220323T131047Z
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SUMMARY:'Nora' with Nuala O'Connor - 28 March
DESCRIPTION:In this centenary year of the publication of Ulysses we are delighted to welcome Nuala O’Connor to the Society to discuss her novel Nora. When Nora Barnacle\, a twenty-year-old from Galway working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel\, meets young James Joyce on a summer’s day in Dublin\, she is instantly attracted to him\, natural and daring in his company. But she cannot yet imagine the extraordinary life they will share together. All Nora knows is that she likes her Jim enough to leave behind family and home\, in search of more. Nora is a tour de force\, an earthy and authentic love letter to Irish literature’s greatest muse. The novel conjures up a portrait of Nora Barnacle from her first meeting with James Joyce\, through her years in Dublin and later across Europe. It thus follows the Joyces as Nora is increasingly torn between their intense and unwavering desire for each other\, and the constant anxiety of living hand to mouth\, often made worse by her husband’s compulsion for company and attention A lively and loving paean to the indomitable Nora Barnacle.Edna O'Brien Nuala O’Connor will be in conversation with David Collard whose own Joycean musings ‘Multiple Joyce‘ will be published in June and feature as part of our Bloomsday celebrations. Joining them will be soprano Angela Hicks and guitarist Tom Gamble with songs of the period.An exceptional novel by one of the most brilliant contemporary Irish writers\, this is a story of love in all its many seasons\, from ardent sexuality to companionable tenderness\, through strength\, challenge and courage.Joseph O'Connor The ILS is partnering again with One Dublin One Book\, the excellent Dublin City Council initiative\, led by Dublin City Libraries\, which encourages everyone to read a book connected with the capital city during the month of April every year. We are delighted to extend the reach of the project to London. The event will be followed by a booksale and signing. \n  \n\nSpeaker: Nuala O’Connor\n\n\n \nNuala O’Connor was born in Dublin\, Ireland\, in 1970. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin\, she is a novelist and short story writer and lives in County Galway with her husband and three children. Nuala has won many prizes for her short fiction including the Short Story Prize in the UK and Ireland’s Francis MacManus Award. She is editor at flash e-zine Splonk. Nora is her fifth novel\, she is also the author of several short story and poetry collections. \n\n\n\nSpeaker: David Collard David Collard is a London-based writer\, reviewer\, researcher\, editor and occasional broadcaster\, appearing regularly in the Times Literary Supplement\, Literary Review and elsewhere\, in print and online. His forthcoming book is Multiple Joyce: 100 short essays about James Joyce’s cultural legacy (Sagging Meniscus Press\, June 2022) Read an excerpt on RTÉ. \n\n\n\nGuitar: Tom Gamble A keen advocate for collaboration\, Tom has worked and performed with musicians as diverse as Duke Alexander\, David Knopfler\, Angela Hicks\, The Boston Sinfonia and The London Philharmonic. Tom has released three solo albums\, each to their own critical acclaim\, and has been featured numerous times on BBC Radio 3. As a live performer\, Tom is known not only for his genre-bending shows\, but also for his friendly spoken introductions to the music. \n\n\n\nSoprano: Angela Hicks Lancastrian soprano ANGELA HICKS is a versatile singer\, experienced in opera\, oratorio\, theatre\, medieval\, renaissance\, chamber music and recitals with organ\, piano and lute. Since embarking on her musical career\, she has performed internationally\, and has established herself as a specialist in the baroque repertoire. 
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/nora-with-nuala-oconnor-28-march/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,feminism,novel,Reading,women
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20211207T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20211207T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20211124T124649Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211129T172417Z
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SUMMARY:The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne - 7 Dec
DESCRIPTION:The Brian Moore at 100 Project and the Irish Literary Society present a free screening of The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne\, an adaptation of Moore’s anti-church novel that features an astonishing Maggie Smith in a role regarded as one of her finest. \nJudith Hearne (Smith) is a middle-aged spinster who’s dedicated her life to the church and caring for her cantankerous aunt\, scraping a meagre living giving piano lessons. Believing she’s finally found companionship in the form of her landlady’s brother Madden (Bob Hoskins)\, a New York-based entrepreneur\, Judith begins to exhume her emotions\, unaware that she may be misinterpreting his intentions. \nTo mark the centenary of the birth of Belfast-born writer Brian Moore (1921-1999) the ILS have partnered with the Exeter University project Brian Moore at 100. Designed to coincide with the centenary of his birth\, this project seeks to critically appraise\, and thus revive scholarly and public interest in\, the work of neglected and important Belfast-born writer\, Brian Moore (1921- 1999). If you attend the screening you may also be interested in a talk on 8 December with the academic Dr Sinéad Moynihan and writer Lucy Caldwell on Moore’s work and legacy.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/brian-moore-at-100-the-lonely-passion-of-judith-hearne/
LOCATION:Irish Cultural Centre\, Hammersmith\, 5 Black’s Road Hammersmith\, W6 9DT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:adaptation,feminism,film,novel,women
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200325T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200325T203000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20200126T102708Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200404T111910Z
UID:16767-1585164600-1585168200@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Christine Dwyer Hickey - POSTPONED
DESCRIPTION:THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS. WE WILL LOOK TO RESCHEDULE IN THE COMING MONTHS \n\n\nThe Society is delighted to partner with the Dublin City Council for a second year to deliver an event on the Dublin One City One Book choice. This year’s choice is Tatty by Christine Dwyer Hickey. Dublin One City One Book is a Dublin City Council initiative\, led by Dublin City Libraries it encourages reading for pleasure through a myriad of free public events throughout the month\, held in libraries\, galleries\, theatres and museums. We will also be joining with the Hammersmith Irish Cultural Centre’s Book Club for this event and encourage all attendees to read Tatty in preparation for the event. The special edition for this years celebration will be available at our February Ciaran Carson event. \nTatty is the story of a Dublin family as told through the eyes of one of its children over a ten year period. During this time we see the destruction brought about by alcoholism as one little girl tries to come to terms with her parents’ drinking. This is the story of a disturbed childhood\, yet it is also filled with humour and love. Chapter by chapter\, the child’s voice matures and her perception becomes more honed; we are left with a stunning portrait of a disintegrating family and the child lost within it. Dorothy Allen is a former BBC journalist\, currently writing for the German and Swiss Press\, she will join Dwyer Hickey in conversation. \n  Dwyer Hickey’s mastery of the child’s voice is spectacular and her acute understanding of the mentality of children leads to some hilarious moments.Sunday Tribune \n Image: Drawing of a Young Girl\, Joseph Syddall\, 1891 \n  \nPresented in association with the Dublin One City One Book:  \n \n  \nSpeaker: Christine Dwyer Hickey\n   \nChristine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist\, playwright and short story writer. She has published eight novels\, one collection of short stories and a full-length play. \nTatty was published by New Island Books (2004) and by Vintage UK (2005). It was shortlisted for Irish Novel of The Year 2005\, listed as one of the 50 Irish Novels of the Decade at the Irish Book Awards 2010 and was nominated for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Fiction Prize). Her latest novel The Narrow Land (Atlantic UK 2019) is set on Cape Cod in 1950 and examines the turbulent marriage of American artists Edward and Jo Hopper. Christine’s stories have been published in anthologies and magazines worldwide and have won several awards the most recent of which was at for her story Back to Bones at the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year Award 2017. Her play Snow Angels premiered at the Project Arts Theatre in 2014. Her work has been widely translated into European and Arabic languages and she is an elected member of Aosdána\, the Irish academy of arts. \n \nTatty: Dublin One City\, One Book edition
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/christine-dwyer-hickey-25-march/
LOCATION:Irish Cultural Centre\, Hammersmith\, 5 Black’s Road Hammersmith\, W6 9DT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:children,interview,novel,social history,special event,women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Christine-Hickey.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200127T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200127T203000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20200117T115551Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T161543Z
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SUMMARY:The Female Detective - 27 Jan
DESCRIPTION:As we approach St Brigid’s Day we are delighted to welcome an all-female panel to an event considering the continuing popularity of Irish crime writing\, so-called “Emerald Noir”. Our guests will read from their work\, reflect on their portrayal of female detectives and as all three are UK-based we’ll consider their London and Dublin settings. In Maeve Kerrigan (Casey)\, Bridie Devine (Kidd) and Frankie Sheehan (Kiernan) we have three brilliantly drawn female detectives overcoming obstacles and prejudice. \nHow do we account for the huge growth in popularity of Irish crime writing\, is it connected to peace in Northern Ireland\, the economic collapse from 2008? Is generic labelling useful or does it signal a lack of appreciation of the quality of writing? Join our panel for an evening of readings and discussion on their work\, influences and perspectives on the crime fiction genre. \n\n ‘One of the most thoroughly human and convincing police officers in the fictional ranks’ The Guardian on Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan. \n‘Thrilling\, mysterious\, twisted’ Graham Norton on Jess Kidd’s Things in Jars \n‘Olivia Kiernan writes with a rare mastery . . . A total triumph’ Rachel Edwards\, on Olivia Kiernan’s The Killer in Me \n\n  \n\n\n \n The event will be followed by a sale and signing of books.   \n  \n \nChair: Katherine Armstrong\n\n\n \nKatherine Armstrong has worked in publishing for over fifteen years and is currently Editorial Director for Fiction at Bonnier Books UK. She has previously worked at Faber & Faber and Little\, Brown. Her speciality is crime and thriller fiction. She was one of the founding organisers of First Monday Crime Nights in London and is programme consultant for NOIReland\, a new international crime fiction festival in Belfast. Follow Katherine on twitter: @katherinecrime \n  \nSpeaker: Jane Casey\n\n\n \nCrime is a family affair for Jane Casey. Married to a criminal barrister\, she has a unique insight into the brutal underbelly of urban life\, from the smell of a police cell to the darkest motives of a serial killer. This gritty realism has made her books international bestsellers and critical successes; while Detective Maeve Kerrigan has quickly become one of the most popular characters in crime fiction. Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award for THE STRANGER YOU KNOW\, Jane also won The Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2019 for CRUEL ACTS. Her new Maeve Kerrigan novel THE CUTTING PLACE is publishing in April. Jane is also a member of Killer Women. Follow Jane on twitter: @JaneCaseyAuthor \n  \n  \n  \nSpeaker: Jess Kidd\n\n\n \nJess Kidd is the author of three novels and is the winner of the 2016 Costa Short Story Award. Jess’ debut novel\, Himself\, was published by Canongate in October 2016. The Hoarder\, her second novel\, hit the shelves in February 2018. Jess’s third book Things in Jars came out 4 April 2019 and features the intrepid detective Bridie Devine. She is also currently developing her own original TV projects with leading UK and international TV producers\, her children’s book Everyday Magic will be published in June 2020. Follow Jess on twitter: @JessKiddHerself \n  \nSpeaker: Olivia Kiernan Olivia Kiernan is an Irish writer. In a previous life\, she completed a diploma in anatomy and physiology then a BSc in Chiropractic before she succumbed to the creative itch and embarked on an MA in Creative writing. In 2015\, she began writing Too Close to Breathe\, a crime thriller that was published in 2018 and features Dublin detective\, Frankie Sheehan. The second in the series\, The Killer in Me was published April 2019. Follow Olivia on twitter: @LivKiernan. \n 
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/the-female-detective-27-jan/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:crime,exile,feminism,London-Irish,novel,Reading,women
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20181029T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20181029T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20180911T070122Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20181112T135217Z
UID:10758-1540841400-1540846800@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Troubling the Classics - 29 Oct
DESCRIPTION:For our October event we’re bringing together a poet\, a novelist and a dramatist to reflect on their work and its place in a rich seam of Irish literature inspired by the Greeks. The continuing interest of Irish writers in Greek and Latin classical literature as a model and source for inspiration is somewhat surprising given the almost complete disappearance of the teaching of classical languages in Irish schools over the last 50 years. Yet the myths and stories of the ancient world still fascinate audiences and our writers continue to deliver fresh interpretations which reflect on Irish society.  \n‘The violence lies in Carr’s language\, shocking and extraordinarily vivid: we almost hear the buzzing of carrion flies\, smell the stench of carnage.’The Times\nThe nationalist attempt to recover the native\, suppressed\, literary tradition of Ireland found a model in 5th century BCE Athenians and their reaching back to the foundational epics of Homer. From the 19th century Irish translations of Greek tragedy were tied up in a project of recovery of a bardic tradition; from Yeats to Heaney this poetic tradition continued and absorbed great figures of modern poetry like MacNeice\, Boland\, Mahon and Kennelly. More recently that tradition has broadened and our dramatists and novelists have found intriguing correspondences in form and culture with the Greeks e.g. Alan McMonagle’s novel Ithaca\, Theo Dorgan’s collections Orpheus and Greek\, Peter Fallon’s versions of Hesiod and of the Georgics of Virgil\, and Frank McGuinness’ startling new versions of Greek drama. Our three guests representing the dramatic\, poetic and prose novel forms will discuss their work and the appeal and relevance of ancient literature. ‘Part of the thrill is recognising the correspondences between the characters and Homer’s originals . . . the language is enough to keep you enthralled . . . Hughes’s achievement is to prove that Homer remains ignoble\, messy and horribly familiar — Guardian’The Guardian Marina Carr’s plays bring alive the Greek classics in a uniquely contemporary and Irish manner. In By the Bog of Cats she reconstructs Medea\, in her Hecuba she positions the Queen at the centre of a drama clearly intended as a corrective to Euripides\, who portrays Hecuba as an enraged avenger. Michael Hughes’s widely praised second novel Country transposes the Illiad to border country\, Northern Ireland\, post-ceasefire\, 1996. After a woman turns informer\, an IRA gang takes matters into its own hands and storms the local British army base. But there is a falling out between Pig\, the gang’s leader\, and the sniper\, Achill. Death and betrayal follow. The poet Peter McDonald’s has lately developed an interest in verse translation from Greek and in 2016 produced The Homeric Hymns (2016)\, a series of verse translations into different English forms\, along with detailed notes on the ancient Greek poems themselves. Speakers:  Marina CarrOne of Ireland’s most celebrated playwrights whose poetic tragedies often reinterpret ancient myth and address violence and the place of women in Irish life. Across her great Midlands-set plays Carr creates a timeless version of Ireland\, replete with ghosts\, ill-fated women and tragic families. Throughout her work Carr’s engagement with myth and folktale can be read as a richly imaginative reflection on the development of Irish cultural identity. In 2017 Carr was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize. She is a lecturer in Dublin City University’s School of English. She is working on new plays for the Abbey and the Kiln Theatre in London\, the latter about Clytemnestra in the aftermath of the Trojan war will appear in 2019-2020 season.  Dr Florence Impens (Chair)Dr Impens holds a PhD in English from Trinity College\, Dublin\, as well as MAs in French and in Irish Studies from Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3. Her book Classical Presences in Irish Poetry after 1960: The Answering Voice provides the first overview of classical presences in Anglophone Irish poetry after 1960. Focusing on classical presences in the work of Seamus Heaney\, Michael Longley\, Derek Mahon\, and Eavan Boland. She is the author notably of ‘Classics and Irish Poetry after 1960’ in the forthcoming 5th volume of the Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature (Kenneth Haynes Ed.)\, and of ‘Classical Roots’ in Seamus Heaney in Context (Geraldine Higgins Ed.)\, due out with Cambridge University Press.  Michael HughesMichael Hughes grew up in Keady\, Co. Armagh\, and now lives in London. He attended St Patrick’s Grammar School in Armagh and read English at Corpus Christi College\, Oxford before training in theatre at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris. He has worked for many years as an actor under the professional name Michael Colgan\, and he also teaches creative writing. His first novel\, The Countenance Divine\, was published by John Murray in 2016. His widely praised novel Country is published by Hodder & Stoughton and available now.  Professor Peter McDonaldProfessor Peter McDonald (born 1962 in Belfast) is a poet\, Professor of English and Related Literature\, he holds the post of Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry in the English Language at Christ Church\, Oxford and is a Fellow of St Hugh’s College. He produced the modern edition of the Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice (2007). The focus of his research now is the editing of W.B. Yeats’s Complete Poems for the Longman Annotated Poets series. He has published six original volumes of poetry since 1989\, most recently Herne the Hunter (2016)\, and his Collected Poems were published in 2012. A signing of Michael Hughes’ Country and Peter McDonald’s The Homeric Hymns will follow the event.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/troubling-the-classics/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell St\, London\, WC1B 3NN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Classics,Greek,history,Latin,novel,poetry,Reading,research,theatre,tradition,translation
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20180219T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20180219T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20171207T203821Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20180208T101132Z
UID:9857-1519068600-1519074000@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Jews in Irish Literature - 19 Feb
DESCRIPTION:The Irish Literary Society is engaging with writers and academics to reflect on ‘Representations of Jews in Irish Literature’. The innovative research project of the same title was developed out of NUI Galway and Ulster University and forms the centre of tonight’s event. The main objective of the project is to analyse representations of Jews in Irish literature from the earliest times to the present. The project is investigating references to Jews in Irish literature\, whether in Irish or English\, and is collecting more substantial references into an anthology of such writing. In addition to a talk on the findings we will be welcoming a novelist\, poet and scriptwriter to read from and reflect on their work which explores Jewish-Irish connections.  \nThe academic and creative work presented explores the processes of othering by investigating the forces in consciousness and culture which generate the assumptions\, biases\, stereotypes and myths out of which the Jewish other is produced. The representation of the Jew in Irish literature actually tells us much more about Irish than about Jewish identity\, how in fact a whole psychohistory of Irishness is hidden in these neglected representations. \nPresented in association with the Representations of the Jews in Irish Literature Project:\n\n\nSpeaker:\n\nDr Barry Montgomery \nBarry Montgomery is an Irish literary scholar specialising in Irish Jewish Studies and Irish Fiction. He has contributed seven chapters (from the Early Modern Period to the present in Irish fiction\, drama and poetry) to the forthcoming co-authored critical volume of the AHRC funded Ulster University and NUI Galway Representations of Jews in Irish Literature project. He forms part of the project team for the accompanying Exhibition\, which he has promoted on RTÉ radio\, Irish television\, and newspaper interviews\, delivering lectures on Irish Jewish Literary Studies at the Royal Irish Academy\, Dublin\, at The Linen Hall Library\, Belfast (to mark Holocaust Memorial Day\, 2017)\, and related conference papers at The University of Notre Dame\, Indiana\, and Georgetown University\, Washington DC. He has written on Ruth Gilligan’s Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan\, has contributed to the forthcoming Crime Fiction – A Critical Casebook (Peter Lang)\, writing on Richard Head’s The English Rogue (1665)\, and contributed several entries on early nineteenth century fiction to The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel\, 1660-1820.\n  \n\nRuth Gilligan\nRuth Gilligan is an Irish novelist and journalist now living in London and working as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. She has published four novels to date\, and was the youngest ever person to reach number one on the Irish bestsellers’ list. Her most recent novel\, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan (2016)\, was based around the history of the Jewish community in Ireland\, and garnered major critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as The Istanbul Review\, The Irish Pages\, Ambit and Banshee Lit. She writes regular literary reviews for the Guardian\, the TLS\, the LA Review of Books and the Irish Independent where she was a columnist for a number of years. She is also part of the global organisation Narrative 4 which uses storytelling as a tool to foster empathy between diverse communities. \n  \n\nSimon Lewis\nSimon Lewis was the winner of the Hennessy Prize for Emerging Poetry and the runner up in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2015. He also featured in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series the same year. He has been shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award\, Listowel Poetry Prize\, Strokestown International Poetry Prize and Bridport Prize and received commendations in the Gregory O’Donoghue prize and Dromineer Literary Prize. He has also been published in many literary journals and magazines including The Stony Thursday\, Boyne Berries\, Literary Orphans\, The Stinging Fly\, Bare Hands\, and Irish Literary Review. His first collection\, Jewtown\, was published in 2016 by Doire Press. \nSpread the word:
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/jews-in-irish-literature-19-feb/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,exile,folklore,history,interview,judaism,lecture,novel,poetry,politics,Reading,religion,research,social history
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20171030T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20171030T203000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20170903T131534Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20180117T005153Z
UID:9456-1509391800-1509395400@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Writing Gay Irish Lives - 30 Oct
DESCRIPTION:In light of social and legal changes in Ireland over recent years the ILS is drawing together Irish writers to consider the representation of queer people in Irish literature. Our panel will be reflecting on London as a place of escape\, queer representation in Irish writing\, homosexuality in the discourse of what constitutes Irishness\, and the integration of queer characters and narratives into the wider culture. Here in London the 50-year anniversary since it stopped being illegal for two men (criminal law\, until Section 28\, targeted only men) to be in a relationship in England and Wales has been widely celebrated\, the law changed in Scotland and Northern Ireland later – not until 1993 was same-sex sexual activity decriminalised in Ireland. Historically many Irish queer people felt compelled to emigrate in search of a more supportive social climate\, the attraction of London was obvious as a metropolitan centre associated with tolerance of sexual diversity and established queer communities. Yet now Ireland now has gay marriage (passed by 62% vote share)\, a young\, openly gay taoiseach and progressive trans recognition legislation – the influence of Catholic dogma has clearly waned. The rich and varied work of our panel will be discussed in the context of these changes and each writer will read from their work.  \nSpeakers:\n\nDr Michael G Cronin\nMichael G Cronin is a Lecturer in English\, specialising in twentieth-century and contemporary Irish literature and in sexuality studies. He received his MA from the University of Sussex\, having studied on the renowned Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change programme. He subsequently completed a doctorate on the twentieth-century Irish Catholic bildungsroman at Maynooth University\, where he was an IRCHSS Government of Ireland scholar.  Along with Impure Thoughts\, he has published essays on twentieth-century and contemporary Irish fiction\, and on contemporary Irish sexual politics.  He was Guest Editor of a special issue of Irish Review (Irish Review 46\, Autumn 2013) on Irish Studies in the wake of the 2008 crash. He is currently working on a project provisionally entitled ‘Revolutionary Bodies: homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish writing’.  \n\nMary Dorcey – UNFORTUNATELY MARY WILL NOT NOW BE ABLE TO APPEAR AT THIS EVENT\, 30 OCT\nThe critically acclaimed poet\, short story writer and novelist\, Mary Dorcey was born in County Dublin\, Ireland. She is a member by peer election of ‘Aosdana’ the Irish Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 she won the Rooney Prize for Literature for her short story collection: ‘A Noise from the Woodshed.’ Her bestselling novel Biography of Desire (Poolbeg) was published in September of 1997 to critical acclaim and reprinted three times. She was writer in residence at Trinity College for the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies for ten years where she gives seminars in contemporary English literature and taught a creative writing course. She also taught for four years at University College Dublin. Dorcey’s most recent collection is Perhaps the Heart is Constant after All. (Salmon Poetry. October 2012) \n\nBarry McCrea\nThe Chair of our panel is Barry McCrea\, a novelist and scholar of modern European\, Latin American\, and Irish literature. He most recent book is Languages of the Night: Minor Languages and the Literary Imagination in Twentieth-Century Ireland and Europe (Yale University Press\, 2015)\, which won the American Comparative Literature Association’s René Wellek prize for the best book of 2016. He is the author of The First Verse\, a novel\, winner of a number of awards including the 2006 Ferro-Grumley prize for fiction and a Barnes and Noble “Discover” prize\, and of In the Company of Strangers: Narrative and Family in Dickens\, Conan Doyle\, Joyce and Proust (Columbia University Press\, 2011)\, which won the Yale Heyman Prize for scholarship in the humanities.Professor McCrea holds has a BA in Romance languages from Trinity College Dublin\, and a PhD in comparative literature from Princeton. Before joining Notre Dame\, he taught comparative literature at Yale University\, where he was appointed full professor in 2012. Professor McCrea teaches fall semesters in the Rome and Dublin Global Gateways and spring semesters on campus. \n\nJamie O’Neill\nJamie O’Neill was born in Dún Laoghaire in 1962. He left for England at the age of 17 and lived and worked in England for two decades\, he now lives in Galway. His first novel\, Disturbance\, was published in 1989 and followed by Kilbrack in 1990. Thereafter O’Neill struggled to write and on parting company with both his agent and publisher he took the job as a night porter at the Cassell Hospital\, a psychiatric institution in Surrey from 1990 up to 2000. His critically-acclaimed novel\, At Swim\, Two Boys (2001) earned him the highest advance ever paid for an Irish novel and frequent claims that he was the natural successor to James Joyce\, Flann O’Brien and Samuel Beckett. At Swim\, Two Boys was re-issued this year to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. The novel describes a burgeoning love between two teenage boys\, Jim Mack and Doyler\, childhood friends – “cara macree\, pal o’ my heart” – in the early years of the 20th century in Dublin. They meet again some years later in a flute band as 15-year old Doyler teaches Jim to swim. They make a pact – on Easter Sunday 1916\, they will swim to Muglin’s Rock to claim it for themselves and for Ireland.  \n\nCherry Smyth\nCherry Smyth is a poet\, novelist and art critic. Her first poetry collection When the Lights Go Up (Lagan Press\, 2001) traces her move from Ireland to London and the negotiations of identity required in a new country. One Wanted Thing (Lagan Press\, 2006)\, her second volume\, is less concerned with loss than with a buoyant affirmation of love\, acceptance and the wider issues of the fall-out of events like 9/11 and 7/7: how these changed our world-view. In Test\, Orange (Pindrop Press\, 2012)\, she brings together a range of poetic forms from haiku to longer free-verse poems dealing with things we face in a female body. In 2000–01\, Cherry was writer-in-residence in a women’s prison and published their extraordinary work in A Strong Voice in a Small Space (Cherry Picking Press\, 2002)\, which won the Raymond Williams community-publishing prize in 2003. She has been teaching writing poetry in the Creative Writing Department of the University of Greenwich since 2004. She was appointed a Royal Literary Fellow\, 2014-2016. Her novel Hold Still (Holland Park Press\, 2013) charts the role of Irish woman Jo Hiffernan as muse to both Whistler and Courbet. \nSpread the word:
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/writing-gay-lives/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,exile,history,interview,novel,poetry,politics,Reading,social history,tradition
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20170522T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20170522T203000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20170228T211301Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20171123T230150Z
UID:9033-1495481400-1495485000@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Donal Ryan - 22 May
DESCRIPTION:The novelist Donal Ryan joins Dorothy Allen to discuss his latest novel\, All We Shall Know. Ryan’s award-winning debut\, The Spinning Heart\, was published to great acclaim in 2012: it won the Guardian First Book Award\, the European Union Prize for Literature\, and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. The Thing About December and his short story collection A Slanting of the Sun followed soon after. All We Shall Know is a tragic and vivid tale which confirms Ryan as an acute chronicler of the disaffection at the heart of present-day Ireland. \nAll We Shall Know tells the story of Melody Shee. At 33 years-old\, she finds herself pregnant with the child of a 17 year-old Traveller boy\, Martin Toppy\, and not by her husband Pat. Melody was teaching Martin to read\, but now he’s gone\, and Pat leaves too\, full of rage. She’s trying to stay in the moment\, but the future is looming\, while the past won’t let her go. It’s a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a bold young Traveller woman\, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody’s life.  \nFollowing the nine months of her pregnancy\, All We Shall Know unfolds with emotional immediacy in Melody’s fierce\, funny\, and unforgettable voice\, as she contends with her choices\, past and present. Without disclosing the details of this final scene\, it does not seem extravagant to claim it is worthy of Greek drama. That the tragedies of our own age happen in suburban semis\, or on Travellers’ sites\, does not make them any less cathartic – and Ryan’s choice of narrator\, a character both deeply flawed and painfully guilty\, shows him working in the great tradition of tragic fiction\, his lonely adulteress coming to grief in the same shadowy spaces as Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina.The Guardian \n‘Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen\, I’m thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I don’t think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn’t feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another\, his spirit untangling itself from me.’  \nSpeaker:\n\nDonal Ryan is from Nenagh in County Tipperary. His first two novels\, The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December\, and his short story collection A Slanting of the Sun\, have all been published to major acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award\, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland)\, and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. The Thing About December was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards\, and the title story of A Slanting of the Sun won the writing.ie Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal holds a Writing Fellowship at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.\nSpread the word:
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/donal-ryan-22-may/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,interview,novel,Reading
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20170424T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20170424T210000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20170109T164338Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20171123T230245Z
UID:8864-1493062200-1493067600@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Carlo Gébler - 24 April
DESCRIPTION:Author\, playwright\, teacher and filmmaker Dr. Carlo Gébler visits the ILS to read from his work and reflect on his career\, changes in attitudes to literature in his lifetime and his recent short story collection and memoirs. His most recent publications are The Projectionist\, the story of Ernest Gébler\, a life of his father that mixes memoir and biography\, the short story collection\, The Wing Orderly’s Tales\, and Confessions of a Catastrophist (2015).  \nFor almost 25 years\, Gebler worked as a teacher and writer-in-residence in the Maze and Maghaberry Prisons. In his 2016 book of short stories based on that experience\, The Wing Orderly’s Tales\, he gives a fascinating insight into the inmates he worked with and why some people end up committing crimes. Previous work considering imprisonment and its consequences includes A Good Day For A Dog (2008) and My father’s Watch (2009) – the latter written with Patrick Maguire is an intensely moving memoir of his co-author\, one of the ‘Maguire Seven’\, wrongly imprisoned as a teenager for making bombs for the IRA. Gébler has already proved himself a master at transmuting historical facts into compelling fiction…And in this new novel he’s just as adroit at creating psychological and dramatic suspense out of known facts … a book so rich in characterisation\, so expertly paced and so well written that it works equally well as absorbing social history and page-turning thriller.Irish Independent \nAs a catastrophist who never doubted from the moment he started that conditions in what he calls the Kingdom of Letters would only get worse\, Carlo Gébler is not in the least surprised by how things have turned out. It was always going to go downhill and in his Confessions of a Catastrophist (2015) he described that process but in his own personal\, idiosyncratic and caustic way. The book is an intriguing mixture of pungent\, fierce and striking memoir with pithy mordant notes on the literary trade\, on the books he’s written and why he wrote them\, and on the difficult business of negotiating a way through the thickets and trying to make a living. Also published in 2015 was his part biography/part memoir about his relationship with his father Ernest Gébler: The Projectionist: The Story of Ernest Gébler. He tells the enthralling story of his father’s life\, covering his strange and alienated childhood\, his disastrous family relationships\, his marriage to writer Edna O’Brien\, his staunch socialism and uncompromising disciplinary attitude\, and his final heartbreaking struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.  \nSpeaker:\n\nCarlo Gébler was born Dublin in 1954\, the eldest son of writer parents\, Ernest Gébler and Edna O’Brien. He was educated at Bedales School\, the University of York\, where he studied English\, and the National Film & Television School. He has a PhD from Queen’s University\, Belfast. He started his career in television and made a number of documentary films for Channel 4 and others. Gébler is also the author of novels\, short stories and radio dramas. As well as his film-making and literary work\, Gébler has also worked as a teacher and academic. In the early nineties he was the creative writing tutor at the Maze prison and since 1997 he has been the writer-in-residence in HMP Maghaberry. Gébler has taught at Queen’s University Belfast and has contributed to the creative writing programme at the Oscar Wilde Centre\, Trinity College Dublin\, for many years and currently teaches the ‘Writing for a Living’ course there. He was elected  a member of the Aosdána in 1990. He is a past chairman of the Irish Writers’ Centre. He is married with five children and currently resides outside Enniskillen\, Co Fermanagh\, Northern Ireland.\nSpread the word:
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/carlo-gebler-24-april/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:biography,book signing,interview,novel,Reading
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20170130T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20170130T203000
DTSTAMP:20260525T222050
CREATED:20161208T132154Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20171123T230959Z
UID:8719-1485804600-1485808200@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Sebastian Barry - 30 Jan
DESCRIPTION:The great Irish writer Sebastian Barry visits the ILS on 30 January to join in conversation with Prof Roy Foster about his new novel Days Without End. \nThe novel continues Barry’s saga of two Irish families\, the Dunnes and the McNultys\, which has spanned several novels and multiple time frames and locations. The Guardian has called the sequence ‘one of the most compelling\, bravura and heart-wrenching fictional projects of recent memory.’A beautiful\, savage\, tender\, searing work of art. Sentence after perfect sentence it grips and does not let go.Donal Ryan \n‘Time was not something then we thought of as an item that possessed an ending\,\nbut something that would go on for ever\, all rested and stopped in that moment.\nHard to say what I mean by that. You look back at all the endless years when you\nnever had that thought. I am doing that now as I write these words in Tennessee. I\nam thinking of the days without end of my life. And it is not like that now…’ \nAfter signing up for the US army in the 1850s\, aged barely seventeen\, Thomas\nMcNulty and his brother-in-arms\, John Cole\, go on to fight in the Indian wars and\,\nultimately\, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships themselves\, they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder\, despite the horrors they both witness and are complicit in. Their lives are further enriched and endangered when a young Indian girl crosses their path\, and the possibility of lasting happiness emerges\, if only they can survive.A violent\, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making [and] the most fascinating line-by-line first person narration I’ve come across in years.Kazuo Ishiguro \nMoving from the plains of the West to Tennessee\, Sebastian Barry’s latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. Both an intensely poignant story of two men and the lives they are dealt\, and a fresh look at some of the most fateful years in America’s past\, Days Without End is a novel never to be forgotten. \nSpeakers:\n\nSebastian Barry\nSebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His novels and plays have won the Costa Book of the Year award\, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize\, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year\, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He also had two consecutive novels\, A Long Long Way (2005) and the top ten bestseller The Secret Scripture (2008)\, shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize. He lives in Wicklow.\n\n\nProf Roy Foster\nRoy Foster recently retired as Carroll Professor of Irish history at Oxford\, he is a fellow of Hertford College. He has written widely on Irish history\, society and politics in the modern period\, as well as on Victorian high politics and culture. Foster produced a widely acclaimed biography of William Butler Yeats which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In Words Alone: Yeats and his inheritances (2011)\, he presents a re-reading of Irish literary history throughout the nineteenth century and places Yeats and his inspirations in apposition to a much wider range of literary and political precursors than is usually the case. His most recent book is Vivid Faces: the revolutionary generation in Ireland 1890-1914.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/sebastian-barry-30-jan/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:America,book signing,history,interview,novel,Reading
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