Athlone Literary Festival
What? An annual event in a town with many literary associations, The Athlone Literary Festival has its origins in the John Broderick Weekend held in May 1999. The festival is aimed at readers and writers and all those who enjoy good conversation and good literature.
Speakers include academics, wits, writers, poets, novelists, biographers, publishers and literary agents from time to time
When? Weekend of 7th October, 2011
Who? 2 011, Donal Casey, Thomas Conway , Dave o'Connell, Jo O'Donoghue, Michael Harding, Sinead Kilgarriff, Philomena Lynott more
Where? Athlone (from the Irish: Baile Átha Luain meaning "town of Luan's ford") is a town that lies on the River Shannon near the southern extremity of Lough Ree, Ireland. AA Route Planner | multimap
How much? There is a small admission fee to most programme items.Enquiries and bookings to athloneliterary@gmail.com or to 090 6498838. Bookings may also be made at The Prince of Wales Hotel on the festival weekend. However, patrons are advised that some events may book out in advance.
Festival Website: http://athloneliteraryfestival.com/index.html
2010 Festival Wrap
The Athlone Literary Festival attracted record numbers to its events this year. With the launch of a new poetry book by local author Desmond Egan, the start of the new Athlone Sunday Miscellany and the three workshops on creative writing, comedy writing and memoire writing all attracted a new audience to the festival. In addition this year the festival brought playwright and author Terence Frisby to visit the English classes in three secondary schools and this was a very popular event as Terence brought to life for the pupils of the Athlone Community College, St Joseph's Summerhill and St Aloysius what the evacuation meant to him and his family. The Festival committee would like to thank the English teachers and the schools for organising the sessions with the pupils and hope it inspires new creative writing in Athlone. "Organising a festival of this kind takes considerable work, outlined Chairman Jarlath Duffy, " and the committee worked tirelessly to bering some well known authors such as Claire Keegan, Desmond Egan, Terence Frisby and Michael D Higgins to the town while also giving a platform to wonderful and talented local authors at the Kilbeggan writers session, the Poetry Forum and the Sunday Miscellany.
Visitor Information
Athlone has had guided historical walks for more than thirty years but a new Literary & Cultural Walk of Athlone has been specially devised for this year’s Festival by local historian and author Gearoid O'Brien. This will take in authors as diverse as T.P. O’Connor, John Broderick, Desmond Egan and Hannah Greally – it will include information on other writers, on musicians, artists and composers. If you ever thought that Athlone was an oasis of culture come along and be convinced otherwise!
Previous festivals:
- Niall Crowley former CEO of the Equality Authority on his book “an Ambition for Equality
- Dr Eamon Maher “Broderick and the French Connection”
- An audience with Dermot Bolger on writing and publishing
- Colm O’Gorman reading from his memoir Beyond Belief Beyond Belief '
- Dr. Steven King, Journalist, Irish Examiner Columnist
- Irene Graham
- Caroline Walsh
- Dooncha O' Connell
- Mary Melvin Geoghegan
We apprecicate you insights into literary festivals that you might have attended or are hoping to get too, or your views on award winning books.
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