Top authors guaranteed to make this year's Tipperary literary festival a real page-turner

From Oscar-nominated screenwriter Emma Donoghue to the inimitable Francis Brennan, this year’s Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival once again delivers an eclectic mix of genres.

Running from October 5 to 8, fiction, crime, memoir, sport, style, art and drama will feature as the festval marks its 20th anniversary.

Festival patron and local award winning author Donal Ryan has written: “This year, as every year, writers and artists from all over the world, from debutantes to household names, join local chroniclers and custodians of our rich histories and our endless vaults of stories in a celebration of the unifying power of creativity, the infinite potential of the arts to recognise, confront and offer solutions to the problems of this fracturing world, to generate empathy, and to create and sustain friendships and peace.”

Carlow-based artist Bridget Flannery has created a series of pieces under the title RIVER TRACES which are inspired by Ryan’s novel Queen of Dirt Island. This art exhibition will be in Nenagh Arts Centre for the month of October.

The opening night has three local writers, poets Eleanor Hooker and Sean O’Connor and novelist Siobhan McGowan reading from their work.

The same evening bestselling author and Room screenwriter Emma Donoghue comes to the festival for the first time. She’ll be joined onstage by Sinéad Gleeson to discuss her new novel, Learned by Heart.

Memoir and poetry will be discussed by award winning writers Vona Groarke and Kit deWaal who will also conduct master classes over the weekend.

For crime fans, best selling authors Catherine Ryan Howard and Andrea Mara will be in Nenagh Arts Centre on Saturday night. Both authors recent books The Trap and No-one Saw A Thing have been runaway successes.

Solsborough House is the perfect setting for an event about the daughters of Ernest Guinness. Emily Hourican comes to the festival to discuss her fourth Guinness Girls novel, Mummy Darlings.

On the non-fiction front Claire Walsh’s Under Water is a candid and captivating memoir of how holding her breath taught her to live. She’ll on the annual Sunday morning KU EE TU cruise in conversation with Lia Hynes. Robert O’Byrne will be at Nenagh Castle discussing the lives of 10 families whose houses were burned down during the Civil War with Vona Groake. There’ll also be music at this event by harpist Laura O’Sullivan and singer Cathie Ryan.

Aging Well in Style will be the central message to hotelier and TV presenter Francis Brennan’s talk at Ashley Park House on October 8. He’ll be joined by local baritone Dylan Rooney.

The GAA today will be the focus of an event with Eimear Ryan, author of The Grass Ceiling and Ciarán Murphy of Second Captains and author of This is the Life. They’ll be looking at the role of women in the GAA and the plight of rural clubs in conversation with disability activist Joanne O’Riordan.

There’ll be theatre this year in the Nenagh Arts Centre. DNLF presents Paddy Goes to Petra written and directed by Upperchurch’s Áine Ryan.

Do Chuala Ceol is a beautiful collaboration between singer and composer Fiona Kelleher, musician Caoimhín Vallely and award winning filmmaker Dónal Ó Céilleachair based on the poetry of Seamus Ó Céilleachair and Seán Ó Riordán (An Creagar).This 45-minute film with music, poetry and visuals follows the course of the River Sullane, marrying the scenery with the poems and music, while adding elements of animation.

This will be followed with a talk in Ballycommon by ecologist, broadcaster and nature enthusiast Anja Murray whose recent book, Wild Embrace, is an antidote to eco-anxiety, as she awakens us to the unseen wonders of Ireland’s natural world

Full details and booking at www.DNLF.ie