GOVERNANCE

Board of Directors

Edward ( Ned) O’Sullivan – Chairperson

Edward ( Ned) O’Sullivan was a member of Seanad Eireann from 2007 to 2025. Former Mayor of Kerry and Chairman of Kerry Co Arts. 

Graduate of UCD and teacher of English and History, Ned is a founder Director of St John’s Arts Centre and the Kerry Literary Museum. 

 

Gabriel Fitzmaurice 

Gabriel was born, in 1952, in the village of Moyvane, Co. Kerry where he still lives. For over thirty years he taught in the local primary school from which he retired as principal in 2007. 

 

 

Mary Kennelly 

Mary spent many years working in Education and in the Arts. She is also a published poet and writer. 

Mary’s involvement in the Arts has included work with Listowel Writers’ Week and the Brendan Kennelly Summer Festival. Her works include; ‘Sunny Spells, Scattered Showers’ with R Carroll, ‘From the Stones’, Splinters with B Fitzmaurice, ‘Seven Steps to Birth a Crone’ with R Carroll & S Hitching, ‘Catching Bats Takes Patience’ and ‘Into The Grey’. 

Mary joined the Board of Writers Week in 2025.

Lisa O’Flaherty

Lisa joined the Board of Listowel Writers’ Week in 2025. She is a communications and project management professional with extensive experience in the public sector, specialising in events and strategic communications. 

Based in Listowel, she previously served on the committee of Listowel Food Fair for several years and brings a strong understanding of community focused event planning. Lisa is committed to promoting and growing Listowel Writers’ Week, building on the strong foundations laid by those who contributed to its success over the years.

Joanna Keane O Flynn

Joanna is a native of Listowel and has been volunteering with Listowel Writers Week for over 26 years. Joanna is a former chairperson of the festival and has previously been a director. Joanna was involved in programming, marketing and introduced The Young Adult Bookfest to the festival.  

Joanna teaches English and Irish in Presentation Secondary School Tralee. She is also director of John B Keane Occasions where she helps oversee her late father’s literary estate.



Christy Walsh

Christy is a prominent publican and community figure based in Listowel, County Kerry. He owns and operates Christy’s Bar. Christy is deeply involved with many charitable and cultural activities in Listowel including Aras Mhuire Nursing Home, Revival Music Festival, Listowel Harvest Festival. He has also served as Chairperson of the Kerry Vintners’ Federation. Christy is well known for his significant fundraising activities for multiple charities.

 

Margaret Sheehan

Margaret is a native of Listowel. She is a qualified Solicitor who worked in general practice in Kerry and West Limerick for many years. She currently works in the Civil Service. Margaret is a poet and has been involved in a number of local writers’ groups.  She is a founding member of Seanchaí Writers Group in Listowel.



 

Listowel Writers’ Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival are governed by a voluntary board of Directors. See list of Directors above. Listowel Writers’ Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival are committed to good governance and are compliant with the Governance Code since November 2018. See HERE.   The organisation complies with all regulatory requirements and operates in accordance with its governing document, available HERE.

Listowel Writers’ Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival keeps detailed books and records of accounts and maintains strict financial controls. The organisation is transparent in its audited financial statements, with most recent statements (2020) available HERE.

Listowel Writers’ Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival are open, honest and fully transparent in their fundraising activities, the proceeds of which all go towards the primary activity of organising and promoting annual literary festivals for both adults and children. Listowel Writers’ Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival confirmed compliance with the Statement of Guiding Principles of Good Fundraising developed by Irish Charities Tax Research Ltd (ICTR) See more….  Public Compliance Statement HERE.

Complaints, Feedback and Comments

Any complaints, comments and feedback can be addressed to: Listowel Writers’ Week, 24 The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry. Tel: 068 21074

Name and Registered Address:

Writers’ Week Company Limited by Guarantee
24, The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland V31 RD93
Writers’ Week Limited is a company limited by guarantee and is a not for profit arts organisation.
See Memorandum and Articles of Association

Registered Number: 55241
Registered Charity No. 20019112

Writers’ Week Company Limited by Guarantee is trading as Listowel Writers’ Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival.

Listowel Writers’ Week EDI Policy

Listowel Writers’ Week is committed to the following principles and values:

  • Creating opportunities for art to operate as a dynamic and meaningful social entity.
  • Challenging understandings of how literature can be experienced in an Irish rural idiom.
  • Programming artists who challenge dominant socio-cultural agendas.
  • Sustaining participatory and indigenous practices.
  • Providing open and inclusive spaces that are accessible to all irrespective of age, ethnicity, gender expression, socio-economic background, neurodiversity, health, sexuality, ability, or religion.
  • Sharing the creative process with the resident and working communities of Listowel town and beyond.
  • Connecting artists with community members, fellow researchers, and the wider arts sector.

Sharing the Arts Council’s belief that ‘every person living in Ireland has the right to create, engage with, enjoy, and participate in the arts’ (EHRD Policy & Strategy, 2019), we are dedicated to reaching communities that have no definable relationship with literature.

Accessibility is something we are taking very seriously, and it was reflected in our 2024 festival. We are enormously proud that we were, again, able to offer free parking during our 2024 festival to our visitors. Our venues were selected for being wheelchair accessible, offering disabled toilets and parking. We included a new section on our website where people can call …. to enquire about access, help and general information. Festival in a van was an outreach activity with enormous success, where music and poems were not only performed in the Square of Listowel to the public but also to residents in three care homes in Listowel. Emerging writers were promoted daily with book launches.

Some of our artists this year reflected the diverse society we live in:

  • Gustav Parker Hibbett, Jane Clarke (LBGQ+)
  • Oein de Bharduin (Traveller)
  • Sofia Andrukhovych, Halyna Budilova, Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko (Ukranian)
  • Leon Diop, Briana Fitzsimmons (Black Irish)
  • Karl Browne’s Snizzly Snout event for visually impaired children
  • Pat Sheedy (former prisoner)
  • Catriona Ni Chleirchin and Laoighseach Ni Choistealbha, Matt Mooneys Cuirt Filochta event (Irish speaking)
  • Barbara Scully, Orla Doger and Val Troy event dealing with life in the post-menopausal years
Listowel Writers’ Week Artistic Policy 2020 – 2025

Listowel Writers’ Week provides a creative and entertaining festival that inspires its participants and, by encouraging engagement in the arts, enriches cultural life locally, nationally and internationally.

The main tenets of our artistic policy are as follows;

* Promote access to works of literary excellence in the various genres of writing to diverse audiences whist ensuring value for money within budgetary constraints.

* Curate a spread of art forms to engage and entertain. Sub-committees discuss how literature, art, theatre, film, drama, music and poetry fit into our programme, and these can be developed in order to support the framework of engagement and development of our audiences.

* Provide a forum for emerging, established, mid-career, senior, significant or honorific artists to include local, national and international artists.

* Enable writers to advance their skills and develop their careers with forums for meeting other writers, publishers and writers’ agents etc.

* Guarantee that artists are always fairly and equitably remunerated.

* Ensure gender balance and social diversity across the programme of events.

* Encourage an outlet for artists from groups that are at risk of discrimination or exclusion and support artists from a diverse range of communities.

* Welcome and embrace different ideas on presentation and context.

* Evaluate artists’ suitability for participation and inclusion in the programme of events to enhance and achieve the KPI’s of our audience development strategy.

* Enable the creative processes of writing through literary workshops for children and adults delivered by reputable and professional facilitators.

* Engage with school children and young adults. Our family and school events programme which runs over four days, covers the age group from birth to 12-13year olds. It is fully inclusive, offers disabled access and events specifically programmed to ensure inclusion and cultural diversity across the festival.

In addition, and under the same premise, we run a day long festival for young adults, 13-15+ year olds – Young Adult Book Festival, also known as YA Book Fest.

* Develop partnerships with strategic partners, local authorities, organisations, community, government authorities and other stakeholders thus facilitating evidence-based decision making for the purposes of future planning and curation of the festival including professional development of volunteers.

* Consult with attendees, strategic partners, stakeholders, community and local authorities each year with a desired outcome of monitoring and evaluating the demographics to ascertain what steps are necessary to further increase our audiences, deepen our relationship with our audiences and diversify to become more inclusive in terms of audience development and public engagement.

* Host multi-disciplinary arts events during the year to engage with the local community.

Listowel Writers’ Week remains committed to being an inclusive and welcoming festival that willingly and enthusiastically collaborates with artists, arts organisations, communities, government authorities, and other stakeholders in pursuit of the mutual goals of Making Great Art Work.

Listowel Writers’ Week Child Protection Policy

Listowel Writers’ Week Child Protection & Welfare Policy document can be viewed here.