Literary festival on in Tipperary this weekend with some great events taking place

There's authors for everyone at this year's Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival. Running from 10th to the 13th October – DNLF 2024 is packed with the best of contemporary writing.

The opening event in Nenagh Tourist Office mixes poetry and song. Helen Hutchinson spent much of her early life in Cloughjordan and now lives in Nenagh Her poetry collection From the Dirt Lane Back to the Open Roads, offers an insight into the history and culture of Travellers. Linda McKenna’s debut poetry collection, In the Museum of Misremembered Things, was published by Doire Press in 2020. In 2018 she won the Seamus Heaney Award for Poetry and the Red Line Festival Award. Michael Dooley’s poems have appeared in Banshee, the Irish Independent, Poetry Ireland Review & The Stinging Fly. Bríd Kenny & The Noise have played headline shows in Dublin, Limerick and several in Galway. They have opened for Junior Brother, Stephanie Rainey and Ol’ Times.

For fiction fans - there’s Donal Ryan, our festival patron. He’ll be reading from his beautiful new novel Heart Be at Peace in Nenagh Arts Centre This new book is a sequel to his bestselling debut A Spinning Heart but can be read as a standalone novel as well. It revisits the original characters 10 years later. It has been praised as ‘another masterclass in balance’. He’ll be in conversation with RTE Radio 1’s Paula Shields and will be joined by poet Geraldine Mitchell.

Michael Harding’s wonderfully reflective memoirs have been bestsellers for years. Also in Nenagh Arts Centre, he’ll read from and discuss his new book I Loved Him From The Day He Died. Harding writes about a holiday in Spain, walking a short part of the Camino de Santiago in the early summer of 2024. But as he set off on this pilgrimage, Harding wasn’t alone. Accompanying him was his father, who passed away when Michael was just twenty-two. A man who was distant and aloof, but who had a profound effect on the writer’s life. He’ll be interviewed by author and scholar Sarah Moore FitzGerald.

There’ll be workshops for both fiction and poetry. Acclaimed poet Jane Clarke will lead her workshop while Niamh Mulvey will take the class for fiction. Both will also give readings of their own work. Niamh will be joined by award winning Sinead Gleeson, author of the recent Hagstone and Fiona McPhillips, author of When WE Were Silent. Jane will be reading with Eoghan Daltun in Balycommon Hall who’ll be  presenting his new book The Magic of an Irish Rainforest.

There’s a treat instore for food fans. Leading Chefs Mark Moriarty and Dennis Cotter of Cork’s famous Paradiso will be discussing their new cook books with Nenagh’s own Peter Ward of Country Choice in the Abbey Court Hotel.

Diarmaid Ferriter’s last DNLF event was the sold out discussion about the Irish Civil War. His new book The Revelation of Ireland 1995-2020 is a fascinating look at the massive social, economic and political upheaval that took place in recent Irish life. He’ll be talking to Aine Lawlor in the Nenagh Arts Centre about The Celtic Tiger, The collapse of the Catholic Church and Northern Ireland.

Another returning historian is Robert O’Byrne. In the beautiful setting of Solsborough House, he’ll be discussing his most recent book The Irish Aesthete: Buildings of Ireland, Lost and Found with essayist and critic Cristín Leech. This book was born from O’Byrne’s tireless work charting the hidden glories of Ireland’s buildings.

The now annual trip around the lake on the Ku-EE- TU from Dromineer will be in the great company of Nuala Moore. The sea has always been a part of Nuala’s life: her earliest memory is of jumping off her father’s fishing boat in Dingle Harbour and swimming back to shore. Since then, she’s swum in some of the coldest, most remote and dangerous waters in the world, from the Bering Strait to the Drake Passage. Nuala will be in conversation with Nathan O'Donnell a Nenagh native and author of The Book of Invasions an exploration of swimming in Lough Derg.

Writer John McKenna will bring the story of his wonderful friendship with Leonard Cohen to the Abbey Court Hotel. Through their letters, emails and MacKenna's exploration of his favourite Leonard Cohen songs, his  book Absent Friend  book builds a picture of a comradeship that culminated in their creating. Between Your Love and Mine, a requiem Mass for theatre, in the months before Leonard's death. He’ll be accompanied by singer Katie Jacques.

For more information and booking, see www.dnlf.ie --