Irish Writers' Weekend - Sunday

Please see the programme below. 

Sunday Passes allow access to any of the sessions although entry to specific sessions may be subject to room capacity. Discounts available for British Library Members and half price tickets for Students, Under 26 and other concession groups.   

Weekend online tickets are also available here, that will enable you to watch Piggott Theatre sessions either live or for the next 7 days on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out in the confirmation email you receive after booking.  

Please note that evening headline events are not included in Sunday in-person passes, and separate tickets are required. These are Graham Norton, Louise Kennedy and Paul Muldoon (Friday 22 November), Muldoon’s Picnic (Saturday 23 November) and Country Girl: A Tribute to Edna O’Brien (Sunday 24 November) Tickets for these events may be booked here.

Book signings will be running throughout the day. 

The Irish Writers’ Weekend is supported by Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in London. 

Hotel partner



PROGRAMME - SUNDAY 24 NOVEMBER
11.30 venue doors open

12.00 - 13.15 Home and Away:  Belfast and Beyond 
Aimée Walsh, Lucy Caldwell and Michael Magee with Peggy Hughes  
Pigott Theatre 
Aimée Walsh’s and Michael Magee’s remarkable debut novels Exile and Close to Home both see their main characters return from time away at university and drawn back into a Belfast turmoil of displacement, disrupted dreams and friendships that are both destructive and life saving. Lucy Caldwell was born in the city and her novels and acclaimed short story collections Openings, Intimacies and Multitudes often feature its people, whether at home or from a distance. They talk to Peggy Hughes, Chief Executive at the National Centre for Writing.   

12:30 – 13:30 Poetry Session
Eliot Room (not online)
Poetry Session: Nandi Jola and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe with Manuela Moser.
Readings and conversation with two outstanding poets: South African-born, Belfast based poet and storyteller Nandi Jola, and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe whose first collection Auguries of a Minor God was published by Faber. They blend highly personal accounts of migration and exile, of home and belonging, with reflections on love, humanity and the wider world. Hosted by Manuela Moser, Director of Cúirt International Festival of Literature and cofounder and editor of The Lifeboat Press.

13.45 - 15:00 Modern Fables  
Jan Carson, Rónán Hession and Sinéad Gleeson with Barry Pierce. 
Pigott Theatre 
With three much loved writers and advocates for literature, each of whom have used mystery, timelessness and the play of ideas - in their tender, brave, sometimes funny tales of lives lived and worlds both strange and mundane. Jan Carson’s Quickly, While They Still Have Horses, Sinéad Gleeson’s Hagstone and Rónán Hession’s Ghost Mountain are three of the most intriguing and memorable books of this year, and their authors come together in conversation with Barry Pierce. 

15:30 - 16:45  The Irish Abroad  
Christine Dwyer Hickey, Clair Wills and Kevin Barry  
Pigott Theatre 
The true and imagined experiences of the diaspora are vividly brought to life in three acclaimed books published this year. Kevin Barry’s The Heart in Winter is an extraordinary Irish Western love story set amongst the bars and chaos of 1890s Montana. The moving journey through time, Our London Lives, by Christine Dwyer Hickey brings two Irish outsiders together in the unforgiving city. In her memoir Missing Persons, Clair Wills tries to make sense of a complex family history in Ireland from the distance of the UK.
Hosted by broadcaster Peter Curran. 

15.30 – 16.45 Unladylike: Ireland, Women and Sport 
Eliot Room (not online)
Ireland is a sports mad country, but its sports literature has only in recent years started to represent women’s experiences and voices. A session devoted to the histories of Ladies Gaelic Football and football with Hayley Kilgallon, author of the recently published Unladylike: A History of Ladies Gaelic Football and Helena Byrne who has published widely on soccer history for general and academic publications.
Hosted by Joe O’Neill, Director of the Irish Creative Network.

17:15 – 18:30  The Dark Heart  
Colin Walsh, Mike McCormack and Una Mannion with Jan Carson 
Pigott Theatre 
Exploring mystery, secrets and lies in three remarkable recent novels. The atmospheric thriller Kala by Colin Walsh reunites three old friends on the Irish west coast as their chilling past starts to unravel. This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack, which follows his award-winning Solar Bones, is a taut and darkly funny examination of a man facing up to the dangerous truth of his life. Una Mannion won the CWA Gold Dagger Award, for best crime novel of the year, for Tell Me What I Am, a haunting story of a family with a dark secret. Hosted by novelist Jan Carson.  

Followed by Country Girl: A Tribute to Edna O’Brien 19:15 – 20:45. Separate tickets required and available here.