Booker Prize Nominee for this year's Festival

We are proud and delighted to announce that Claire Keegan will appear at the 2022 festival. Claire's novel, Small Things Like These has recently been named on the long list for this year’s Booker Prize. At 116 pages, it is the shortest book recognised in the prize’s history. It has already won the Prix Littéraire des Ambassadeurs en Irlande, The Kerry Prize for best Irish novel and The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

Claire was raised on a farm in Wicklow. Her works of fiction are translated into thirty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles.

Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award — then the world’s richest prize for a story — and was recently named by The Times UK as one of the top 50 works of fiction to be published in the 21st Century. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and Best American Stories.

Her appearance is set to be a literary highlight for this year's festival.

Poetry Competition Judge Announced.

Prize-winning poet Kate Ennals will judge the entries in our 2022 Poetry Competition. Kate is the author of three collections of poetry: At The Edge, Threads and Elsewhere. Winner of the Westport Arts Festival Poetry Competition in 2017, Kate’s work has been published in literary and on-line journals including Crannog, The International Lakeview Journal, Boyne Berries and many more. A well-known leader of poetry and writing workshops, she organises At The Edge - Cavan, a series of literary readings funded by the Cavan Arts Office.

Before earning an MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2012, Kate worked in UK local government and the Irish community sector. She is currently a Board Member of PEN na hÉireann / PEN Ireland. She has lived in Ireland for nearly 30 years. Her blog can be found at kateennals.com.

The Awards Ceremony for the winning entries in the Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction competitions will be webcast during the 2022 Allingham Festival, Nov 2-6. The Poetry Competition is open through 16 September 2022. Guidelines and entry forms are now available.

Flash Fiction Judge 2022

Acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Mia Gallagher will judge the entries in the 2022 Allingham Flash Fiction Competition. The Competition is currently open for entries through 16 September – see rules and entry forms

Mia Gallagher is the author of two novels: HellFire (Penguin, 2006) and Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (New Island, 2016). Her first short-story collection, Shift, was published in 2018.

Her award-winning short fiction has been published widely in Ireland and abroad. She is a contributing editor to The Stinging Fly, and has enjoyed the role of writer-in-residence in many environments. Her reviews, articles and essays have been published in the Irish Times, The Guardian, the Sunday Independent, The Stinging Fly, Architecture Ireland, Circa, and Books Ireland.

The Awards Ceremony for the winning entries in the Poetry and Flash Fiction competitions will be webcast during the 2022 Allingham Festival, Nov 2-6.

ARE WE ALL MAD?

"Well you may ask!", you may say, but this year we are delighted to welcome Dr Tony Bates to ask this precise question in the context of the increasing medicalisation of our everyday lives.

The phrase, ‘We all have mental health’ is widely used in the media, in government policies, and mental health charities and schools. Intended to reduce stigma, we are encouraged to talk about our ‘mental health issues’ openly. Intended to break down barriers between the minority who are deemed to be ‘mentally ill’ and the rest of us who are ‘normal’, this is generally regarded as a good thing. But it has had some unintended consequences.

It has become a blanket term for ‘feelings’, including loneliness, self-doubt, sadness, anxiety, and frustration. Whereas before these were accepted as an inevitable part of being human, there is a growing tendency to see these experiences as indicative of something ‘wrong’ with a person. From being people who struggle in different but important ways throughout our lives, we are now encouraged to consider that we may have a diagnosable psychiatric condition.

Young people are turning to social media that diagnose their struggles as ‘mental health’ problems. Dr Bates’ talk will explore why we insist on translating our emotional highs and lows into the language of ‘mental health’ and what happens when we increasingly medicalise our everyday lives.

The Allingham Lecture takes place in the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon, on Thursday 2nd November @ 8pm

It is a free event but please book to avoid disappointment.

Adult Fiction & Poetry Competitions

The 2022 Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction Competitions are designed to recognise and reward talented writers who, in the footsteps of William Allingham, seek to launch or further their careers. The Allingham Festival offers competitions for adult writers of poetry and flash fiction. (Competitions for Children’s Art and Writing will be announced separately.)

The top prize in both Flash Fiction and Poetry is €300. First-, Second- and Third-Place Winners will be invited to read their winning entries in an awards ceremony during the Festival.

For the 2022 adult P&FF Competition rules and entry forms, click here.