• Writing Gay Irish Lives – 30 Oct

    The Bloomsbury Hotel The Bloomsbury Hotel, 16-22 Great Russell Street, London, United Kingdom

    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 ...

  • Tara Bergin – 14 Nov

    The Embassy of Ireland 17 Grosvenor Pl, London , London

    The Irish Literary Society is delighted to invite its members to the Embassy of Ireland for an evening with one of Ireland's most fascinating poets. As there are only limited seats available for this event interested members should apply for tickets via the form below. Tara Bergin’s debut collection, This is Yarrow, won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and she ...

  • Jews in Irish Literature – 19 Feb

    The Bloomsbury Hotel The Bloomsbury Hotel, 16-22 Great Russell Street, London, United Kingdom

    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 ...

  • Troubling the Classics – 29 Oct

    The Bloomsbury Hotel 16-22 Great Russell St, London, United Kingdom

    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 ...

    £8
  • On the Pavement Grey: WB Yeats in Utopian Bedford Park – 19 Nov

    The Embassy of Ireland 17 Grosvenor Pl, London , London

    Lecture by Cahal Dallat with guests Ciarán Hinds and Anne-Marie Fyfe & launch of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project   Nobel-prizewinning poet, WB Yeats, though much inspired by Irish legend, landscape and longing, spent two-thirds of his youth in London, the majority of that time in Chiswick's Bedford Park, the Utopian/aesthetic garden-suburb/artists'-colony whose diverse inhabitants fostered his literary talent and endeavours. Irish poet and literary critic, Cahal Dallat, has ...

  • 25 Feb – The North, Irish poetry special

    The Bloomsbury Hotel The Bloomsbury Hotel, 16-22 Great Russell Street, London, United Kingdom

    The ILS is working with The North poetry journal for this event to launch their special Irish issue. Editors and poets Jane Clarke and Nessa O'Mahony lead a rich evening of readings and discussion of contemporary Irish poetry. From an issue bursting with ideas and innovation (120 poems by 107 poets) we are gathering some fascinating poets to illustrate the ...

    £8
  • I Wouldn’t Start from Here – 30 Sept

    The Bloomsbury Hotel 16-22 Great Russell St, London, United Kingdom

    The ILS is delighted to start its 2019-20 season with a showcase of second-generation Irish writers in Britain. Not quite British, not quite Irish, through their essays, fiction and poetry about music, family, and history these distinguished writers explore questions of identity and belonging and ask the perennial question: where is home – here or Ireland? When questions of authenticity ...

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  • The Belfast Agreement and Brexit – 28 Oct

    The Bloomsbury Hotel The Bloomsbury Hotel, 16-22 Great Russell Street, London, United Kingdom

    As we approach yet another Brexit deadline (31 October) the Society has banded-together with the Irish Pages journal to reflect on the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and to consider possible futures for the union, Anglo-Irish relations, power sharing and the border. The current special issue of Irish Pages is given over to reflections on the agreement. The essays and poetry ...

  • Michael Wood, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen – 20 Nov

    The Embassy of Ireland 17 Grosvenor Pl, London , London

    The Irish Literary Society is delighted to announce that the speaker for this year's Annual Yeats Lecture will be Professor Michael Wood. Drawing on his book Yeats and Violence (2010) Professor Wood reflects on how poetry, seen through the instance of a single poem, seeks to make sense of a turbulent and dangerous world. Poetry must introduce order and shape ...

  • Ciaran Carson celebration – 24 Feb

    The Bloomsbury Hotel The Bloomsbury Hotel, 16-22 Great Russell Street, London, United Kingdom

    Irish was his cradle language, and his writing in English always had the verve and zest of a learned language. This was particularly true of his translations – of Merriman’s Cúirt an Mheán Oíche and the Táin, or Dante’s Inferno. As well as from Irish and Italian, he translated short poems from French and Spanish with great style and lucidity. ...

    £10