We send our best wishes to Shaun Byrne for the opening of the professional production of his new play, One night at Glenlough, this week. And when you're blown away by it in the Abbey Arts Centre this Sunday night (as we know you will be) don't forget... Come back on November 10 for AllingDram, featuring a taster of Homegirls a work-in-progress by this emerging writer who is as prolific as he is brilliant.
We are privileged to have three consummate writers, Phyl Herbert, Liz McManus and Mary Rose Callaghan, with us to discuss their acclaimed memoirs in conversation with a great friend of the Festival, Sinead Crowley. Not to be missed.
Phyl Herbert is an actor/director/teacher/writer who has written a memoir ‘The Price of Silence’ (published by Menma Books) about her life, which included getting pregnant by a married man, going to a Mother & Baby Home secretly and having to give up her only child for adoption, a daughter who contacted her 26 years later. Late last year she spoke to Miriam O'Callaghan on her radio programme.
Liz McManus is a former Labour Party politician who served as a Teachta Dála for the Wicklow constituency from 1992 to 2011. When Things Come to Light is a different kind of memoir because, although Liz never knew her maternal grandparents, by using old family papers she has pieced together their story. Wallace and Margaret McKay are Unitarian by birth and republican by conviction. It is the start of the twentieth century and hopes for Irish independence are growing. Wallace's job takes the young couple and their children to North East India, to the tea gardens of Assam, where, before too long, tragedy strikes. Even within the family, ruptures are caused, so deep they cannot be breached.
Mary Rose Callaghan began writing as a journalist in 1973 and was widely published before moving to the United States in 1975, where she finished her first novel, Mothers, in 1978.
While continuing to write fiction, she also worked as a contributing editor for the Journal of Irish Literature from 1975 to 1993, and was associate editor for the first two editions of the Dictionary of Irish Literature. She has taught writing at th e University of Delaware.
Eventually moving back to Ireland, Mary Rose now lives in Bray, where she teaches and writes. The Deep End is her memoir of growing up in Dublin from the mid-1940s in a once well-off family fallen on hard times and forced at times to struggle with extreme poverty.
This promises to be a hugely enjoyable event as these three very successful women take us on their fascinating and uplifting journeys through life and explain just what compelled them to publish their stories which go beyond the surface and delve into the tears and joy of human existence. Saturday, November 10, 3.00pm Abbey Arts Centre. Tickets: €10 + €1 Booking fee
Poet and publisher Kate Newmann will judge the entries to the 2024 Allingham Festival Poetry Competition. The winner of the Competition will also be declared the winner of the annual Francis Harvey Award.
Kate Newmann was Poetry Ireland Poet Laureate for Ballycastle, County Antrim. She is Co-Director of Summer Palace Press, which has published 56 collections of poetry since 1999. She read English at King's College Cambridge, and has served as Director of the Belmullet Writers' Festival. She has judged many poetry competitions, including Northwest Words and Concern Worldwide. She is the author of five collections of poetry, and her next collection will be published in 2025.
The Francis Harvey Poetry Award, first awarded in 2023, was created in memory of the Donegal poet whose writings have been compared to those of Norman MacCaig, RS Thomas, and the Japanese haiku master Basho. The name of the 2024 winner will be inscribed on a glass sculpture that symbolises the Francis Harvey poem “Heron” which won the World Wildlife Fund poetry competition.
The 2024 Allingham Poetry Competition is currently open for entries, with a deadline of 29 September. In addition to the Francis Harvey Poetry Award, the winning poet will win a €300 prize. The First-, Second- and Third-Place winners will read their work at the Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 9 November, along with the winners of the Allingham Flash Fiction Competition. Full details and entry forms for the competitions are posted on-line here
We are honoured to be in a position to bring you this critically acclaimed documentary from the makers of GAZA (2019). In the Shadow of Beirut penetrates deep below the surface of a still beautiful, yet deeply troubled city on the brink of financial collapse. The film weaves together the stories of four characters living in the districts of Sabra and Shatila struggling to survive with dignity and decency amidst unimaginable hardship. Sadly, this wonderfully intimate character-driven study from the Middle East is as timely as it is timeless.
The film is brought to us by Ballyshannon man Garry Keane who is one of the best documentary makers in the business. It is co-produced by Hilary and Chelsea Clinton.
Award Nominations:
George Morrison Feature Documentary Award in 2024 Irish Film and Television Awards
Best Feature Documentary in 2024 Cinema for Peace Awards
Best Documentary in 2023 Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards
Download the poster.
In the Shadow of Beirut will be shown in the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon on Thursday, November, 7th at 8.00 pm Tickets: €10
Broadcaster and author Richard Curran will deliver the Keynote Address at the 2024 Allingham Festival on Wednesday evening, 6 Nov, speaking on the promise and perils of Artificial Intelligence.
Richard Curran is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. He presents The Business show on RTE Radio One, and his columns appear in the Irish Independent and the Sunday Independent. Host of eight series of Dragon’s Den on RTE, he has also co-written two books and made television documentaries. He serves as a qualified mediator.