2019

LIMERICKLITERARYFESTIVALin honour of Kate O’Brien

Introduction 4

Poetry Readings with Jo Slade and Ciaran O’Driscoll 6

Adam Wyeth on Limerick poet Desmond O’Grady 7

Official Opening by Lara Marlowe 8

RTE Radio 1 Arena Live presented by Sean Rocks 9

Musical Interlude featuring Irish National Opera 9

Louise O’Neill 10

Lyndall Gordon 11

Emilie Pine 12

Philippe Claudel 13

David Park 14

Martin Dyar 15

Clodagh Beresford Dunne 16

Niall MacMonagle 17

The National Library of Ireland presents The Blank Page 18

The Morning After The Life Before by Ann Blake 19

Mary Coll 20

Paula Shields 21

Kate O’Brien Hour featuring Éilis Ní Dhuibhne 22

Liz Nugent in conversation with Bill Whelan 23

Desert Island Books with Nadia Whiston Battersby & David Park 24

Richard Ford in conversation with Niall MacMonagle 25

Festival Schedule at a Glance 26

Tickets 28

Acknowledgements 31

Map 34

contents

Festival, The National Library of Ireland in partnership with Limerick

Literary Festival will present The

Blank Page featuring Martin Dyar, Clodagh Beresford Dunne, and Niall MacMonagle who will explore the

making of a poem.

Dolans is where edgy entertainment

meets irreverent comedy at 8pm on

Saturday, February 23rd in the shape

of International award-winning play

The Morning After the Life Before,

fresh from runs in Montreal, London

and New York. The show will be

followed by a panel discussion with

Playwright/ performer Ann Blake,

Emilie Pine, Niall MacMonagle,

Mary Coll and RTÉ producer Paula Shields.

Irish novelist and academic Éilis Ní Dhuibhne will talk about Kate

O’Brien and her work.

Desert Island Books is a very popular

event on the programme and this

year it will be presented by David Park and Eileen Battersby’s daughter

Nadia. Nadia Whiston Battersby has

offered to step in as a tribute to her

late mother who died just before

Christmas. It’s always wonderful

to hear about the books that both

inspire and console.

The 4th annual Kate O’Brien award

for a debut novel from an Irish female

author will be announced on Sunday,

February 24th from the following

shortlist :

• Teethmarks on my Tongue by Eileen Battersby• He is Mine and I Have No Other by

Rebecca O’Connor• Promising Young Women by

Caroline O’Donoghue• The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan• Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford

The Limerick Literary Festival in

honour of Kate O’ Brien is kindly

supported by the Arts Council

Festivals Investment Scheme and

Limerick City and County Council

Festival and Events Grant Scheme.

We gratefully acknowledge our

sponsors, supporters and friends.

Finally, we hope you will enjoy the

2019 festival, which celebrates

writers, artists, books and readers.

T he Festival, formerly known

as Kate O’Brien Weekend, is

this year celebrating its 35th

anniversary. The event continues

to honour the life and works of the

Limerick author while attracting

prominent participants from all over

the world. Building on this significant

history, the Limerick Literary Festival

seeks to promote Limerick nationally

as a place of literary excellence and to

provide a platform where readers can

meet their favourite authors and other

readers.

The Festival is one of Ireland’s most

vibrant and successful festivals which

has been running since 1984 and it

showcases in a diverse and eclectic

programme the best in Irish and

international contemporary literature.

A packed programme for 2019

includes talks, interviews, panel

discussions, poetry, an award-winning

play, a debut book award, and a music

recital.

The Festival highlights include

acclaimed journalist Lara Marlowe,

who will open the Festival in the Hunt

Museum on Friday, February 22nd,

followed by an outside broadcast by

RTE Arena hosted by Sean Rocks.

Irish National Opera, in a new and

exciting partnership with Limerick

Literary Festival, will co-present the

opening night musical recital and

include works from Kate O’Brien’s

novel As Music And Splendour.

Also with us for the weekend are

internationally renowned American

writer Richard Ford whose novel

Wildlife was recently adapted for

the screen by Paul Dano, bestselling

author Louise O’Neill, the celebrated

essayist Emilie Pine, the renowned

biographer Lyndall Gordon, critically

acclaimed novelist David Park, the

award-winning author and No 1

bestseller Liz Nugent who will be

in conversation with Riverdance

composer Bill Whelan.

In partnership with the French

Embassy in Ireland, we have French

writer and film director Philippe Claudel ( il y a longtemps que je

t’aime starring Kristin Scott Thomas).

Limerick poets Jo Slade and Ciaran O’Driscoll will read in the Granary

Library on Friday morning. Adam Wyeth will talk about the legacy of

Limerick poet Desmond O’Grady.

A special highlight this year for the 5

Ciaran O’Driscoll, born in Callan, Co. Kilkenny in 1943 and living in Limerick, is a member of Aosdána. He has published six collections of poetry, including Gog and Magog (Salmon, 1987), Moving On, Still There (Dedalus, 2001), and Life Monitor (Three Spires Press, 2009). His most recent poetry publication is the chapbook, The Speaking Trees (SurVision Books, 2018). He has won a number of awards for his work, including the James Joyce Prize and the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.

Adam Wyeth is a poet, playwright and essayist. Adam’s debut collection Silent Music (Salmon Poetry, 2011) was Highly Commended by the Forward Poetry Prize. In 2013 Salmon published his essays, The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic Mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry. His second collection The Art of Dying (2016) was named as an Irish Times Book of the Year. His plays have been produced in Ireland, Berlin and New York. He teaches Creative Writing at adamwyeth.com.

Adam’s 30 minute documentary on the renowned Limerick poet will also be screened.

Jo Slade is a poet and painter. She is the author of five collections of poetry and two chapbooks of poems, The Artist’s Room, (Pighog Press, Brighton, UK 2010) & The White Cottage (T-A-R Publications) Her most recent collection, The Painter’s House published by (Salmon Poetry in 2013) was joint winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize 2014. Her installation/exhibition, The White Cottage took place in The Sailor’s Home 2016. A forthcoming collection, Cycles and Lost Monkeys will be published by Salmon Poetry, March 2019.

Poetry readings, with Jo Slade and Ciaran O’Driscoll

Friday 22nd February, 11amThe Granary, Limerick City LibraryFree Event

Adam Wyeth on Limerick poet Desmond O’Grady

Friday 22nd February, 1pmCulture House, Pery SquareFree Event

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As France correspondent for The Irish Times newspaper, Lara Marlowe has observed French politics at close range for more than 20 years. She spent four years in Washington DC covering Barack Obama’s first presidential term, and has worked extensively in the Middle East. Before joining the Irish Times in 1996, Marlowe was Beirut bureau chief for Time Magazine.

She holds degrees from UCLA, the Sorbonne and Oxford, and has won three press awards. She is the author of The Things of Seen; Nine Lives of a Foreign Correspondent, and Painted With Words. The French government made her a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur for her contribution to Franco-Irish relations.

RTE Radio 1 Arts and Culture programme, Arena, presented by Sean Rocks, will broadcast live from the Limerick Literary Festival in the Hunt Museum. Sean will chat with Richard Ford, Lyndall Gordon and other guests.

Irish National Opera, in partnership with the Limerick Literary Festival, will co-present the opening night musical recital and include works from Kate O’Brien’s novel As Music And Splendour.

Official Festival Opening by Lara Marlowe

Friday 22nd February, 6pmThe Hunt Museum€15 (€13 concession) includes all evening events

RTE Radio 1 Arena Live, presented by Sean Rocks followed by Irish National Opera

Friday 22nd February, 7pmThe Hunt MuseumSee p.8

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Louise O’Neill grew up in Clonakilty, Co Cork. Her first novel, Only Ever Yours, was released in 2014. Only Ever Yours went on to win the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year at the 2014 Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards; the Children’s Books Ireland Eilis Dillon Award for a First Children’s Book; and The Bookseller’s inaugural YA Book Prize 2015. Louise’s second novel, Asking For it, was published in September 2015 to widespread critical acclaim. She went on to win the Specsaver’s Senior Children’s Book of the Year at the 2015 Irish Book Awards, the Literature Prize at Irish Tatler’s Women of the Year Awards, and the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz award. Asking For It was voted Book of the Year at the Irish Books Awards 2015 and spent 52 weeks in the Irish top 10 bestseller list.

O’ Neill’s first novel for adults, Almost Love, was published in March 2018. The Surface Breaks, her feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid, followed in May 2018 and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards and the National Book Awards in the UK.

Lyndall Gordon is the prize-winning author of six biographies,including Lives Like Loaded Guns : Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds and The Imperfect Life of TS Eliot, and also Shared Lives, a memoir of women’s friendship in her native South Africa. Her latest, Outsiders, tells the stories of five novelists - Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner, Virginia Woolf - and their famous novels.

She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and lives in Oxford where she is a fellow of St Hilda’s College.

Louise O’Neill

Saturday 23rd February, 10amThe Hunt Museum€14 (€12 concession)

Lyndall Gordon

Saturday 23rd February, 11amThe Hunt Museum€14 (€12 concession)

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Emilie Pine is Associate Professor of Modern Drama at the School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin. Emilie has published widely as an academic and critic, and is editor of the Irish University Review journal.

Her first collection of personal essays, Notes to Self, was published in 2018 by Tramp Press.

Emilie will also partake in a panel discussion with playwright/performer Ann Blake, Niall MacMonagle, Mary Coll and RTÉ producer Paula Shields following The Morning After The Life Before. See p.19

Philippe Claudel is a French writer and film director. He directed the 2008 film I’ve Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime) which won the 2009 BAFTA for the best film not in English.

His best-known work to date is the novel Les Âmes grises (Grey Souls), which won the Prix Renaudot in France, was shortlisted for the American Gumshoe Award, and won Sweden’s Martin Beck Award. He won the 2003 Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle for Les petites mécaniques, and the 2010 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, for Brodeck’s Report, his hallucinatory story – almost a dark fairy-tale in which Kafka meets the Grimms – of an uneasy homecoming after wrenching tragedy. In addition to his writing and directing, Philippe is a Professor of Literature at the University of Nancy.

Philippe’s film Il y a longtemps que je t’aime will be shown with English subtitles on Friday 22nd February at the Hunt Museum at 12:30pm. He will introduce it. This is a free event.

Emilie Pine

Saturday 23rd February, 12pmThe Hunt Museum€14 (€12 concession)

Philippe Claudel interviewed by Dr Loïc Guyon

Saturday 23rd February, 1:45pmThe Hunt Museum€14 (€12 concession)

In partnership with the French Embassy in Ireland

David Park is the author of nine novels and two collections of short stories. The Truth Commissioner (Bloomsbury 2008) was awarded the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize and adapted for film; The Light of Amsterdam (Bloomsbury 2012) was shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize and The Poets’ Wives (Bloomsbury 2014) was Belfast’s One City One Book. He has won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award, received a Major Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the American Ireland Award for Literature.

David’s new novel Travelling in a Strange Land is published by Bloomsbury.

David will also present Desert Island Books with Nadia Whiston Battersby on Sunday 24th. See p.24

David Park

Saturday 23rd February, 2:30pmThe Hunt Museum€14 (€12 concession)

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Martin Dyar, poet, playwright, novelist, was born in Sligo. Grew up in Swinford, County Mayo, studied at NUIG, Southen Illinois University and Trinity College where he wrote a PhD thesis on the American poet Wallace Stevens. He was awarded the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2009, the Strokestown International Poetry Award in 2001. His collection Maiden Names, published in 2013, contains his poem ‘Death and the host Office’ and it’s a prescribed poem on the 2019 Leaving Certificate. That same poem was described by Colm Toibin as ‘an instant classic’. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin says that ‘Martin Dyar is a poet writing close to the bones and stones of a real Ireland. A landscape and its animals, people, ghosts, are pinned down, probed and revealed in sharp, often witty language’ and Bernard O’Donoghue has praised Dyar’s ‘narratives about the strangeness of the everyday’ for their ‘vividness and colour’.

Martin Dyar

Saturday 23rd February, 4pm The Hunt MuseumThe Blank Page Event. See p.18

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Clodagh Beresford Dunne was born in Dublin and grew up in Dungarvan. She studied English and Law and qualified as a solicitor. An international debater and public speaker, she represented Ireland three times at the World University Championships, has been awarded several literary bursaries and residencies. From a newspaper background, Beresford published her first story when she was eight and her poetry has been published and broadcast here and in the US.

Her poem Seven Sugar Cubes was published in the Irish Times and was voted Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year Award at the 2017 Irish Book Awards. Thomas McCarthy has said of Beresford Dunne that she is a writer of immense seriousness and purpose. Her poems announce a new vision to us, a new vortex of energy that localises human experience and domesticated genius.

Clodagh Beresford Dunne

Saturday 23rd February, 4pmThe Hunt MuseumThe Blank Page Event. See p.18

Niall MacMonagle is a writer and critic and broadcasts frequently on RTE Radio 1. He writes a weekly art column for the Sunday Independent and has edited several anthologies including Real Cool, Outside In, Slow Time, Off the Wall, The Open Door Book of Poetry, the Lifelines anthologies, the Leaving Certificate anthology Poetry Now, TEXT - A Transition Year English Reader and Windharp: Poems of Ireland since 1916 [Penguin 2015].

In 2017 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by UCD for services to literature.

Niall will also partake in a panel discussion with playwright/performer Ann Blake, Emilie Pine, Mary Coll and RTÉ producer Paula Shields following The Morning After The Life Before. See p.19

He will also be in conversation with Richard Ford on Sunday 24th. See p.25

Niall MacMonagle

Saturday 23rd February, 4pmThe Hunt MuseumThe Blank Page Event. See p.18

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The National Library of Ireland Presents

‘If I knew where poems came from, I’d go there’. - Michael Longley

This event explores the genesis, the making and remaking of a poem of theirs with award-winning poets Clodagh Beresford Dunne (p.16) and Martin Dyar (p.15). Where do poems come from? How is a poem shaped and re-shaped? How does a poet choose a particular form, stanza structure, line length? What happens between a blank page and the finished work?

Such questions and others will be explored with Clodagh and Martin with particular focus on particular poems. The conversation will be moderated by Niall MacMonagle (p.17).

The Blank Page

A groggy Sunday morning, May 24th 2015 and 62% of Ireland is #hungoverforequality, Ann gets a text from her brother: “How’s the morning after the life before?”

Gúna Nua presents the internationally acclaimed and multi award winning, The Morning After The Life Before as part of The Limerick Literary Festival, Kate O’Brien Weekend. Running for one night only on February 23rd in Dolans Warehouse, the show is a personal, entertaining tale of weddings, ‘coming out’ and arguments over who takes out the bins.

Written by Ann Blake, directed by Paul Meade, performed by Ann Blake and Lucia Smyth, The Morning After The Life Before is a light-hearted, playful telling of a true story. Be prepared for music, cake and equality.

Saturday 23rd February, 7:30pmDolans €15

Saturday 23rd February, 4pmThe Hunt Museum €14 (€12 concession)

“★★★★★...a perfectly rendered, heart-warming,

necessary light in the darkest of moments”

Heather Bagnall, www.fringereview.co.uk

“Blake and Smyth’s timing is incredible...uproariously

quick wit ★★★★★”

Melony Holt, Theatre in London

The show will be followed by a panel discussion with playwright/performer Ann Blake, Emilie Pine, Niall MacMonagle, Mary Coll and RTÉ producer Paula Shields.

Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien and Dolans Presents

The Morning After The Life Before

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In addition to having done her MA thesis on Kate O’Brien at NUIG, Mary is a poet, playwright and broadcaster from Limerick.

The first female editor of The Stony Thursday Book, her publications include All Things Considered (Salmon 2002) and Silver ( Arlen House 2018). She has made numerous contributions to Arts and Culture programmes on RTE Radio One, RTE Lyric FM, and RTE Televsion, and has worked as a critic for The Irish Independent and other national newspapers. Stage productions of Excess Baggage (2007) and Anything But Love (2010) were produced at The Belltable Arts Centre Limerick. Other work includes radio plays commissioned by RTE Drama On One, lyrics for the Choral Work ‘Spirestone’ and two award winning art song cycles in association with the Limerick composer Fiona Linnane, and a new play Diamond Rocks: Sunset, commissioned by The Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick.

Mary Coll

Saturday 23rd February, 7:30pmDolans WarehouseThe Morning After The Life Before Discussion. See p.19

An arts journalist since the 1990s, Paula Shields has worked in print, TV and now radio – on Arena, RTE’s flagship arts show. She has hosted many live public events - favourite interviewees include Margaret Atwood and Donal Ryan.

She is also Chair of the judging panel for the 2018 Irish Times Theatre Awards.

Paula Shields

Saturday 23rd February, 7:30pmDolans WarehouseThe Morning After The Life Before Discussion. See p.19

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Éilis Ní Dhuibhne writes fiction, drama and non-fiction in Irish and English, and is also a literary critic. She has published over 25 books, including six collections of short stories. Her latest book is Selected Stories (Dalkey Archive, 2017). She has won many awards for her work, including Irish Pen Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature in 2015, and a Hennessy Hall of Fame Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016. She is a member of Aosdana.

Éilis will talk about Kate O’Brien and her work.

Kate O’Brien Hour featuring Éilis Ní Dhuibhne

Sunday 24th February, 10amThe Lime Tree Theatre€14 (€12 concession)

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Liz Nugent had several careers before turning her hand to writing. In early 2014 her first novel, Unravelling Oliver, was published. It went straight to the top of the bestsellers list and also won the Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Television rights for Unravelling Oliver have been optioned by Appian Way, Leonardo Di Caprio’s production company in Los Angeles.

Her second novel, Lying in Wait, was published in July 2016 and also went straight to number 1. It won the Ryan Tubridy Listener’s Choice prize at the Irish Book Awards and was shortlisted for Crime Novel of the Year.

In Oct 2017, Liz won the Irish Woman of the Year Award for Literature.

Liz’s books have been translated into 18 languages. Her third novel, Skin Deep, was published in Ireland in April 2018, hit the number 1 spot and spent five months in the top ten bestsellers list.

Liz Nugent in conversation with Bill Whelan

Sunday 24th February, 11amThe Lime Tree Theatre€14 (€12 concession)

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Nadia was born in Dublin in 1994. There she lived with her mother, Eileen Battersby, until they moved to Kildare when Nadia was five. Nadia finished her secondary education in Hertfordshire, England and since graduating from the University of Manchester in 2017; Nadia has worked in publishing and as a teacher in secondary schools in South-East London. In September Nadia will commence her MA in English Literature, specialising in Romanticism at The University of Glasgow.

Desert Island Books presented by David Park and Nadia Whiston Battersby

Sunday 24th February, 12:30pmThe Lime Tree Theatre€14 (€12 concession)

David Park : See p.14

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Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist, story-writer and essayist. He’s published twelve books, which have been translated into 35 languages.

He lives in Boothbay, Maine, in the United States, was formerly professor in Trinity College, Dublin, and at present is Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University in the city of New York.

Richard Ford in conversation with Niall MacMonagle

Sunday 24th February, 2:00pmThe Lime Tree Theatre€15 (€13 concession)

Friday 22nd February

11:00am : Poetry readings, with Jo Slade & Ciaran O’Driscoll @ City Library, The Granary

12:30pm : Screening of Il y a longtemps que je t’aime / I’ve Loved You So Long. Introduced by director Philippe Claudel @ The Hunt Museum

1:00pm : Adam Wyeth on poet Desmond O’Grady @ Culture House, Pery Square

6:00pm : Official Opening by Lara Marlowe @ The Hunt Museum

7:00pm : RTE Radio 1 Arena Live with Sean Rocks @ The Hunt Museum

8:00pm : As Music and Splendour in partnership with the Irish National Opera @ The Hunt Museum

9:00pm : Festival Club @ The Hunt Museum

Saturday 23rd February

10:00am - 10:50am : Louise O’Neill @ The Hunt Museum

11:00am - 11:50am : Lyndall Gordon @ The Hunt Museum

12:00pm - 1:00pm : Emilie Pine @ The Hunt Museum

1:45pm - 2:30pm : Philippe Claudel interviewed by Dr Loïc Guyon @ The Hunt Museum

2:30pm - 3:30pm : David Park @ The Hunt Museum

4:00pm - 5:00pm : The National Library of Ireland presents The Blank Page with Niall MacMonagle, Clodagh Beresford Dunne & Martin Dyar @ The Hunt Museum

7:30pm : The Morning After The Life Before by Ann Blake, followed by a panel discussion with Playwright/ performer Ann Blake, Emilie Pine, Niall MacMonagle, Mary Coll and RTÉ producer Paula Shields @ Dolans Warehouse

Sunday 24th February

10:00am - 11:00am : Kate O’Brien Hour featuring Éilis Ní Dhuibhne @ The Lime Tree Theatre

11:00am - 12:00pm : Liz Nugent in conversation with Bill Whelan @ The Lime Tree Theatre

12:30pm - 2:00pm : Desert Island Books presented by Nadia Whiston Battersby & David Parks @ The Lime Tree Theatre

2:00pm - 4:00pm : Richard Ford in conversation with Niall MacMonagle @ The Lime Tree Theatre

4:00pm : Presentation of the 2019 Kate O’Brien Award @ The Lime Tree Theatre

schedule

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weekend pass

February 22nd - February 24th | €125/€100

The Festival Weekend Pass allows entry to all of the events during the Limerick Literary Weekend.

individual ticket prices

Official Opening by Lara Marlowe, ARENA Live with Sean Rocks,Musical Interlude featuring the Irish National Opera6pm, Friday 22nd February, The Hunt MuseumStandard Ticket €15, Concession Ticket €13

Louise O’Neill, 10am | Lyndall Gordon, 11am | Emilie Pine, 12pm | Philippe Claudel, 1:45pm | David Park, 2:30pm Saturday 23th February, The Hunt MuseumStandard Ticket €14 each, Concession Ticket €12 each

The National Library of Ireland presents The Blank Page featuring Niall MacMonagle, Clodagh Beresford Dunne and Martin Dyar, 4pm, Saturday 23rd February, The Hunt MuseumStandard Ticket €14, Concession Ticket €12

The Morning After The Life Before by Ann Blake. Followed by a panel discussion with playwright/performer Ann Blake, Emilie Pine, Niall MacMonagle, Mary Coll and RTÉ producer Paula Shield. 7:30pm, Saturday 23rd February, Dolans WarehouseStandard Ticket €15

Kate O’Brien Hour featuring Éilis Ní Dhuibhne10am, Sunday 24th February, The Lime Tree TheatreStandard Ticket €14, Concession Ticket €12

Liz Nugent in conversation with Bill Whelan11am, Sunday 24th February, The Lime Tree TheatreStandard Ticket €14, Concession Ticket €12

Desert Island Books with David Park and Nadia Whiston Battersby12:30pm, Sunday 24th February, The Lime Tree Theatre

Standard Ticket €14, Concession Ticket €12

Kate O’Brien Lecture - Richard Ford in conversation with Niall MacMonagleStandard Ticket €15, Concession Ticket €13

Tickets can be purchased at the Lime Tree Theatre. Box Office: 061 953400 or online at www.limetreetheatre.ie

Tickets may be purchased at the door for individual sessions, while tickets are still available. Concession tickets are available for student, senior and un-waged purchases.

Please note that ticket capacity is limited at all events, tickets will be issued on a first come first served basis. Please allow time to purchase tickets on the door as no late comers will be permitted once an event commences.

To book tickets for The Morning After The Life Before, please seewww.dolans.ie

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UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK M.A. in CREATIVE WRITING 2019/2020

This one-year programme enables students to develop their Creative Writing skills while working with a first-rate team. Our students enjoy visits and readings from outstanding contemporary authors. Visitors to UL Creative Writing have included Colum McCann, Anne Enright, Louise O’Neill, John Boyne, Kit de Waal, Kevin Barry, Sara Baume, Liz

Nugent, Marian Keyes and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford.

Recent graduates have been published nationally and internationally and have won or been shortlisted for major literary prizes, including the Hennessy New Writer of the Year Award, the RTE Francis McManus Award, the Listowel Writers’ Week Bryan MacMahon Short Story Award, the Arts Council Next Generation Award and the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair Award. Mature students and international students are

always a welcome part of our MA Creative Writing class.

UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK M.A. in CREATIVE WRITING

2019/2020

WITH JOSEPH O’CONNOR, DONAL RYAN, SARAH MOORE FITZGERALD, MARTIN DYAR, ROB DOYLE

and other award-winning and internationally acclaimed authors

Application is open now. For details and programme content, contact: Prof Joseph O’Connor | Email: joseph.oconnor@ul.ie

Thank you to all our funders, sponsors, supporters, participants, friends and visitors for their generosity and support of Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien. A special thank you to The Hunt Museum for their generosity in accommodating Friday and Saturday’s events. Also a special thank you to the Limerick Culture and Arts Office team for their invaluable support. Funders : Arts Council, Limerick City and County Council

Partners & Supporters : The Hunt Museum, French Embassy in Ireland, National Library, Opera Ireland, O’Mahony’s Booksellers, Culture and Arts Office, Lime Tree Theatre, No.1 Pery Square Hotel and Spa, Dolans, Culture House, Absolute Hotel Limerick, RTE Radio 1, Helen O’Donnell, Limerick City Library, Bella Italia, David Punch & Co Solicitors, Fines Jewellers Limerick, Brian Geary Car Sales, Country Choice, Leahy & Partners Solicitors, Piccola Italia, Savins Music Centre, Lawless Flowers, Kleiser Pianos, Alex Findlater & Co, George Hotel Limerick, UL Creative Writing.

Organising Committee : Vivienne McKechnie, Marie Hackett, Eileen O’Connor, Valerie Dolan, Anne Marie Gill, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, Darren O’Dea, Denise Whelan.

Festival Administrator : Ella Daly

The Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien is proudly supported by the Arts Council Festivals Investment Scheme and Limerick City and County Council Festival and Events Grant Scheme.

design/layout : www.juleshackett.com

partners supporters

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