Poetry Trio; Zafar Kunial, Cathy Galvin and Victoria Kennefick

Apr 16, 2026

Poetry Trio; Zafar Kunial, Cathy Galvin and Victoria Kennefick

Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre

Time: 6 PM

Coast to Coast

Join poets Zaffar Kunial, Cathy Galvin, and Victoria Kennefick for an inspiring hour of readings, conversation, and reflection on the craft of poetry. UK based Zaffar Kunial will share selections from his acclaimed collection England’s Green, a richly textured book shortlisted for the T.?S. Eliot Prize.

Victoria Kenefick’s debut collection Eat or We Both Starve(Carcanet, 2021) won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer Award and was widely celebrated as a Book of the Year across major publications. Her second collection Egg/Shell(Carcanet, 2024) has continued to earn critical acclaim.

Cathy Galvin will present work from her first full?length poetry collection Ethnology: a love song for Connemara, which blends lyricism with landscape, myth, and personal history from her roots in Connemara. She is the recipient of a Hawthornden Fellowship.

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An Afternoon with Nicola Sturgeon in Conversation with Andrew O’Hagan

Apr 16, 2026

An Afternoon with Nicola Sturgeon in Conversation with Andrew O’Hagan

Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: Listowel Arms Hotel Main Room

Time: 4.30 PM

In Conversation: Leadership, Resilience and Finding Your Voice
Join Nicola Sturgeon in conversation with Andrew O’Hagan to discuss her first book Frankly, taking readers from her working-class roots to the very heart of Scottish and British politics. With candour, insight and warmth, she shares personal achievements and regrets, discusses the challenges of being a woman in a high-stakes political arena, and reveals the person behind the public figure. The result is a deeply personal and revealing memoir from one of Britain’s most significant political leaders of recent times. Andrew O’Hagan is an award-winning, Booker-nominated writer and one of the foremost chroniclers of contemporary Britain, acclaimed for both his fiction and influential essays.

Sponsored by Listal

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Poetry Pharmacy with Enda Wyley – Thursday

Apr 16, 2026

Poetry Pharmacy with Enda Wyley

Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: Kilmorna Collection

Time: FROM 3.30 PM

A gentle remedy for the challenges and joys of life
Hosted by poet and poetry pharmacist, Enda Wyley will select and prescribe a poem, designed to make you feel better, which you can bring home and read at your leisure. Wyley shares poems that offer comfort, reflection and moments of quiet connection. Rediscover the healing power of words at this truly lovely experience.

Book your appointment as they are strictly limited through our website www.writersweek.ie

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Rud in Easnamh le Dic Walsh

Apr 16, 2026

Rud in Easnamh le Dic Walsh

Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre

Time: 3 PM

A performative, interactive bi-lingual reading of a new novel/play by Dic Walsh with actor Timmy Creed
Ger Power returns to a fishing village in the Gaeltacht where his brother died by suicide 10 years earlier. He uncovers a web of gentrifiers, environmentalists and drug dealers that seem to be manifesting the destruction of the village’s native culture and fishing industry and are also potentially responsible for his brother’s death. Though the real causes for that may be closer to home…

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Colm Tóibín in Conversation with Cathy Galvin

Apr 16, 2026

Colm Tóibín in Conversation with Cathy Galvin

Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: Listowel Arms Hotel Main Room

Time: 2 PM

The News from Dublin, comes to Listowel

A master of understated emotions, the bestselling author of Brooklyn and Long Island returns to Listowel Writers’ Week with a beautiful new collection of short stories. A woman in Galway hears of the death of her son in the First World War. An Irishman seeks anonymity in Barcelona, haunted by crimes he has committed. A young woman is pregnant during the Spanish Civil War… In “The News from Dublin” he delves into the days and nights of those living far from home: lives of great longing, at a great distance from past lives and past selves.

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including. The Master, Brooklyn, and its sequel, Long Island, and The Magician, and three collections of stories. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Between 2022 and 2024 he was the Laureate for Irish Fiction.

Cathy Galvin is a poet and journalist who has served as a senior editor for Newsweek and The Sunday Times.

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