What’s on in literary festivals: Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry, Harlan Coben, Liz Nugent and a focus on Brendan Behan

Keane on Books

The Holy Hour: A Requiem for Brendan Behan runs at Dublin's Museum of Literature Ireland until October

Madeleine Keane Email

March 19 2023 02:30 AM

A diary clash next month means I’ll miss the perennially fabulous Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway. Its new director, Manuela Moser, has just announced details of this year’s festival, which will take place from April 18-23.

Spanning more than 50 events, the programme includes poetry, fiction, theatre, memoir, masterclasses, exhibitions, and family events. Highlights include: two former laureates of Irish fiction, Anne Enright and Sebastian Barry; from the US Carmen Maria Machado, author of the Folio Prize-winning memoir In the Dream House; and Max Porter, Tara Bergin, Donal Ryan, Vona Groarke and Colette Bryce. Full details are at cuirt.ie.

An exciting exhibition has just opened at MoLI in Dublin. The Holy Hour: A Requiem for Brendan Behan reframes the writer of The Borstal Boy and goes in search of a truer picture.

Created by the author Patrick McCabe and celebrating the centenary of Behan’s birth, it’s a captivating audio-visual installation, with voyages via the prism of the Catholic liturgy, and blends archive footage, music, and Behan’s own words to cast the Dublin writer in a more nuanced light. Tickets can be bought at moli.ie.

Great treats lie in store next week for crime enthusiasts. Bestselling American writer Harlan Coben comes to Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, on March 21 to talk about his latest novel, I Will Find You.

Coben, who is also the creator and executive producer of several addictive Netflix dramas, will be interviewed at dlr LexIcon by the chair of the Irish Writers Centre and crime fiction reviewer Breda Brown.

Then on Sunday, March 26, Liz Nugent is also in Dún Laoghaire at the Pavilion Theatre to discuss her extraordinary new work Strange Sally Diamond with fellow crime scribe Sinéad Crowley.

Both events are in association with the Murder One Crime Writing Festival and take place at 8pm. Tickets are now available at murderone.ie.