THE FORGE at Gort literary festival returns to the south County Galway town on Friday March 30 and Saturday 31 featuring readings, workshops, and music.
The festival, which celebrates the literary relationship of the town to WB Yeats, Coole Park, and Thoor Ballylee will see readings by Eddie Lenihan, Ciarán O’Driscoll, Gerard Hanberry, Martin Dyer, County Clare’s The Three-Leggéd Stool poets, Mary Ellen Fean, and Knute Skinner.
The festival opens on Friday 30 in O’Sullivans’ Royal Hotel at 6.30pm with poet Fiona Echlin and music by Claire Sawtell and Mary O’Sullivan. Then at 8pm Gerry Hanberry will read from his latest book, More Lives Than One - The Remarkable Wilde Family Through the Generations, a biography of the family of Oscar Wilde.
Saturday begins with a poetry workshop with Fred Johnston in O’Sullivans’ Hotel at 10am. The cost is €10/7 and booking is essential.
At 12 noon there will be storytelling with the great Eddie Lenihan in the Gort Public Library; the Three Leggéd Stool Poets will read in O’Grady’s Bar & Restaurant at 1pm; Mary Ellen Fean and Knute Skinner will read in O’Grady’s at 2pm. Margaretta D’Arcy and John Arden will present another chapter from their Tea With George Moore series in The Gort Family Resource Centre at 4pm.
George William Russell, better known by his pseudonym AE, was a key figure, along with WB Yeats and Lady Gregory, in the Celtic Revival of the late 19th century and his life and work will be examined in a public lecture as part of The Forge at Gort.
Russell was a journalist and political thinker but he was also interested in religion and spirituality and studied the Hindu Vedas scriptures.
The talk will take place in The Gallery Café on Saturday 31 at 5pm. It will be given by Pearl Finn, author of The Spirit That Moves Us, about Vedic astrology. Admission is free and all are welcome.
The festival closes at 8pm with a concert in the public library, featuring music by renowned harpist Siobhán Armstrong, sean nós singing with Roisín Elsafty, and poetry from Ciarán O’Driscoll and Martin Dyar.
For more information on the festival email [email protected] or call 091 - 564822.
