Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival kicks off with an evening with Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

Two of the giants of Irish writing are lining out this weekend for the Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival which opens this Friday night.

Local multi-award winning author Donal Ryan and Paul Howard, creator of the quintessential Leinster rugby fan Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, are sure to be the main attractions for this year’s staging of the event.

Despite two years of Covid-19, the festival managed to keep going with live audiences - one of the few such festivals in Ireland to do so - and this year is back for its 19th edition.

Following the great success of his new book The Queen of Dirt Island, Donal Ryan will be reading at this year’s festival and will be interviewed in Nenagh Arts Centre on Saturday at 8pm by RTE presenter, Tipperary’s Mary Wilson.

Ahead of that on Friday at 8pm in the arts centre, Paul Howard brings Ross O’Carroll-Kelly to Munster when he will be interviewed by writer and journalist Shane Hegarty

Paul’s 25th Ross O’Carroll-Kelly book, Once upon a Time in Donnybrook, was published on September 1 and his appearance in Nenagh on September 30 will be his first event with this new book, which sees Ross appointed as head coach of the Irish rugby team.

While Donal and Paul are set to be among the main attractions, there will be plenty to whet every type of literary appetite.

Kicking off the festival at 6pm in Nenagh tourist office this Friday will be local award winning film maker Nicholas Ryan-Purcell will discuss his book Anything Is Possible - Learning To Live With My Autism, with Noelle Lynskey, who will also interview special guest Adam Harris, CEO of ASIAM

Three debut novelists Edel Coffey, Aingeala Flannery and Conner Habib will read together on October 1 in Nenagh Arts Centre at 6pm.

In a very special event at Solsborough House on October 2 novelist Martina Devlin, author of Edith, a biographical novel about the life of Edith Somerville, will discuss the Irish Big House with Terence Dooley, author of the recent study Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in a Time of War and Revolution.

Hilary Dully, who has edited Maire Comerford’s revolutionary memoir, On Dangerous Ground, will be discussing Comerford’s importance in Irish history on October 1 at 2pm in the heritage centre.

This year marks the 230th anniversary of the “last gathering of harpers” in Belfast in 1792, and in what promises to be a very special event, poet and harper Emily Cullen and local fiddler Eileen Minogue O’Brien will celebrate the legacy of that important occasion in poetry, harp, fiddle and song.

This event will also include the world premiere of a piece commissioned by the festival.

Lovers of the River Shannon won’t want to miss author Paul Clements in Muintir na Tíre Hall in Ballycommon on Sunday morning when he will retrace Richard Hayward’s 1939 exploration of the Shannon with original footage of the journey.

Following this, Paul will join John O’Connell, author of the successful Cow Book, on board the Ku-ee-Tu in Dromineer to discuss that and his most recent work bestselling work The Stream of Everything, his account of a two-day canoeing trip down the Camlin river in his native Longford.

For the full programme see www.dnlf.ie