We went to Carlow (south-east Ireland) for the weekend of the 10th June as there was the http://festivalofwritingandideas.com/ on, and quite a few interesting-sounding speakers.
The first talk we attended was with Mary Robinson (former president of Ireland, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, eco hero, etc.) and Louise Richardson (VC of Oxford University). They were both extremely engaging and inspiring. Most of the audience questions focussed on their gender, which was a bit annoying really, but as they noted, nowadays there never needs to be a ‘first woman to…’ label attached to anyone growing up as it’s all been done!
Next up (after lunch) was Rap ‘n’ Slam, a session with three separate performers. First came Lemn Sissay, who’s a reasonably famous poet from Manchester. He gave a very strong, confident and dramatic performance which was ideal to start.
The next performer was Emmet Kirwan, a playwright from Dublin who I hadn’t heard of before. Apparently he does a lot of voice-over work in Ireland, in addition to having written and performed quite a lot of material. He was absolutely amazing – when he stepped up in the small family chapel at Borris House to read, I thought he seemed like a bit of a cheeky schoolboy type. This impression was quickly dispelled when he launched into his material – a section of Dublin Oldschool being the highlight for me. The words and their rhythm were perfect (the ones I could understand, that is) as he took us through the streets of the capital in a drugged-up haze using the Dublin vernacular.
Finally, there was the very shy-looking Sam Coll, who didn’t seem like he was that keen on being on-stage at all. He stood staring at the pages of his open book, muttered something from Hamlet, then began an epic reading from his novel The Abode of Fancy, barely pausing for breath. I don’t really know how to describe it or him, except to say that I’m fairly sure he’s a proper eccentric genius. I definitely need to sit down and read his debut novel anyway, if the snippet we heard is anything to go by.
That was it for Saturday – we took the rest of the day off.
Sunday started for me with a talk on the Border with Colm Tóibín, Garrett Carr and Fintan O’Toole. Garrett Carr hasn’t long released his book about walking the Border from east to west, Colm Tóibín wrote one years ago about the journey in the other direction, and Fintan O’Toole is my favourite journalist in Ireland. They spoke movingly of the pain and horrors that have accompanied the Border, as well as providing some lighter anecdotes and political commentary regarding the current travesty of democracy that is ‘Brexit’. Seriously, if your interest in the subject extends beyond getting your opinions from the side of a red bus, Fintan O’Toole’s columns in the Irish Times provide a perspective and analysis that’s often lacking in England at least.
The final item in the schedule for us was Artemis Cooper and Edmund White discussing their biographies. They both had plenty to say, and Artemis Cooper’s stories about Paddy (Patrick Leigh Fermor) were particularly entertaining. They both had disturbing admissions about some of the things they’d done to get the inside scoop on their subjects (sneaking down in the middle of the night to copy letters they’d been told to leave alone, getting a student to befriend a ‘target’, etc.).
All told, an excellent weekend at a very civilised festival. Not too busy, but plenty to see.