Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: Listowel Arms Hotel Main Room

Time: 8 PM

Oscar Wilde’s only grandson offers his insight into his grandfather’s life

Oscar Wilde died in November 1900, exiled in Paris and exhausted by scandal and prison life. The details of his life in the limelight are well known; what has regularly been ignored are the reverberations of the scandal for decades after his death: the myths and legends that have been created, the quarrels between his friends and enemies, the court cases…

His only grandson, Merlin Holland, has dedicated himself to studying Oscar’s life and works, and their wider legacy. In?After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal, Merlin debunks many inaccurate or entirely fictitious stories that have grown up around this iconic figure. Join Merlin for much-needed light on the repercussions of a life and a scandal.

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Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: Listowel Arms Hotel Main Room

Time: 6.30 PM

Elevating the Essay

Andrew O’Hagan and Brian Dillon are two exceptional writers who elevate the essay into a powerful and distinctive literary form.

Andrew O’Hagan’s On Friendship(Faber 2025)is a reflective collection of essays exploring the many facets of the friendships that make us great and the relationships that shaped his life, from schoolmates to the Stone Roses and Edna O’Brien. In these gorgeous personal reflections, O’Hagan illuminates the many ways and reasons that people come together, and how our lives are all the better because we do.

Brian Dillon presents Ambivalence (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2026), tracing his formative years in Dublin, following the early death of both his parents. It is at once a memoir of that city in the 1980s and 1990s, an uncynical portrait of the adolescent andearly-adult mind, and an intimate defence of radical thinking about literature and life, presented in vivid fragments.

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Date: Thursday 28th May 2026

Venue: St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre

Time: 6 PM

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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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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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