Venue: St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre

Time: 2.30 PM

A Beautiful Loan
Join us for a literary reflection with Irish writer Mary Costello, known for her luminous prose and deeply human storytelling, as she discusses her latest work, A Beautiful Loan. Set in 1980s Dublin, A Beautiful Loan follows Anna’s strained marriage to her older husband, Peter. After a devastating miscarriage and his cold refusal of support, Anna reflects on the inherited suffering of Irish women. Yet the novel is not only about loss—it is also about breaking cycles, reclaiming the self, and finding the possibility of renewal.

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Date: Saturday 30th May 2026

Venue: St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre

Time: 1 PM

The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey is a new one man show written and performed by Mikel Murfi.

Following on from The Man In the Woman’s Shoes and I Hear You and Rejoice, the final piece, the third in the series, takes us on a very unusual and otherworldly journey.

Having married Kitsy Rainey late in life, cobbler Pat Farnon finally decides to lift the lid on a life previously lived by his wife. And all the while Pat faces down his own reckoning.

Tender, heartfelt and joyously funny The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey finishes out Pat Farnon’s journey in a most unexpected way.

The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey was created with support from Sligo County Council Arts Service, The Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo and Irish Arts Center, New York.

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Date: Saturday 30th May 2026

Venue: Seanchaí- Kerry Writers’ Museum

Time: 12.30 PM

We Are an Archipelago

Described ‘as close to music as poetry gets’, join Erin Fornoff for a dynamic spoken word poetry performance as she brings her epic poem We Are an Archipelago to life. First created as a one-woman spoken-word performance piece that premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival, this lyrical work blends narrative and verse to tell the semi-true story of a 99-year-old man’s return to the isolated island of his birth and his unexpected friendship with a young woman facing her own storms.

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Date: Saturday 30th May 2026

Venue: Listowel Arms Hotel Main Room

Time: 12 PM

The Looming Storm

With the rise of authoritarianism and intolerance across the world should we fear for the future of democracy? Foreign correspondent Fergal Keane leads a panel of expert voices from the worlds of academia, journalism and social activism to discuss the great challenge of our age.
Sally Hayden is an award-winning journalist, photographer and author. She is an international correspondent for the?Irish Times?and has reported all over the world for an array of outlets. Her first book,?My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route?–won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

Trade unionist Mick Lynch was general secretary of RMT from 2021-2025. One year into his tenure, the UK’s first national railway strike since 1989 catapulted him into the public eye. He quickly became the face of a revitalised trade union movement and became the combative, unapologetic working-class leader and icon the British left had been missing.

Dr Bozena Cierlik is a lecturer in Polish and East Central European history in the School of History, UCC. Her research is focused on modern Polish history, especially issues of nation building and nationalism. She has served as an expert evaluator for the European Commission in key programmes on the human-computer interface and the challenges of the enlargement of the European Union.

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