Today details of the 12th annual Ennis Book Club Festival were announced. Readers travel from all over the country and further afield to gather at this, the only book club festival in the country.

The festival will run from 2-4 March and features:

- A tribute to Sebastian Barry, Sebastian Barry, with Special Guests Mia Gallagher & Claire Kilroy

- The inaugural Beyond Borders Book Club led by members of the Ennis community who come from different parts of the world discussing their book choices from Argentina, Egypt, Poland, and Nigeria.

- 10 Books You Should Read Jane Urquhart & Carlo Gébler

- An increased children and family programme, which includes a children’s and baby book club as well as events for younger readers with Sarah Webb, Steve McCarthy, E.R. Murray, Caroline Bushner and events for teens with Donal Ryan, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Sarah Maria Griffin, John Connolly and Nessa O’Mahony.

- A screening of It’s Not Yet Dark

- How to Read a Novel with Mary Morrissy

- Book Club Favourite Ruth Fitzmaurice in conversation with Mick Heaney

- The Irish Times Book Club with June Caldwell

- Rick O’Shea Book Club Special with John Connolly & Screenings

- Gerard Hanberry On Raglan Road - Great Irish Love Songs and the Women Who Inspired Them

- Crime Night with Liz Nugent, Julie Parsons & Andrea Carter chaired by Gavin Grace

- Sally Rooney & Mary Morrissy at the Festival Club

- Books & Buns to kick start your Saturday morning

- Walking Tour with Jane O’Brien

- Clare Youth Theatre present selections from guest authors

- Modern Ruins and Other Stories Kenneth O’Halloran Exhibition showcasing a snapshot of life in rural Clare, poignantly documenting key events in the cycle of life.

- A special Book Club event, How to Run Your Book Club Better with Mary O’Donnell, Roisin Meaney & Nuala Ní Chonchúir

- New Clare Voices Joe Queally, Karen McDonnell & Liz Price

- Wild Atlantic Poets, readings by members of the Clare Poetry Collective

- Motherfoclóir Dispatches from a not so dead language with Darach Ó Séaghdha

- Literary Lunch, Mary Kenny in conversation with Ciana Campbell

- Out of the Book Exhibition of paintings and other works of art is inspired by contemporary and classical Irish literature.

Find out full details here: ennisbookclubfestival.com/

FULL PROGRAMME OF EVENTS:

The 2018 Ennis Book Club Festival will officially open on Friday 2 March at 6pm with the opening of Clare photographer Kenneth O’Halloran’s new photographic exhibition, Modern Ruins and Other Stories at the glór gallery.

FRIDAY 2 MARCH

It’s Not Yet Dark
Dir: Frankie Fenton

Fri 2 March, 2pm, Glór tickets: €5

It’s Not Yet Dark tells the ground breaking story of Simon Fitzmaurice, a talented young Irish film maker with MND, as he embarks on directing his first feature film through the use of his eyes and eye gaze technology. Simon Fitzmaurice died in October 2017, only two weeks after the film’s release.

How to Read a Novel
with Mary Morrissy

Fri 2 March, 2pm, Temple Gate Hotel. Free

Novel in focus: Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s The Dancer’s Dancing

Do you want to enhance your general reading experience? Improve your ability to read and navigate your way through a novel to get the most out of it? Award winning novelist Mary

Morrissy guides you through the reading of a novel, going beyond plot, to explore the bigger picture – theme, character, voice, narrative arc and structure. In other words - how a novel is made. After this session, we hope you will be a better reader of novels – for your own pleasure, or for your book club’s too.

Book Club Favourite
Ruth Fitzmaurice in conversation with Mick Heaney

Fri 2 March, 4pm. Temple Gate Hotel, €12/€10

Ruth Fitzmaurice’s brave memoir I Found My Tribe is a bestselling book, and favourite of book clubs around the country. ‘One of the year’s most arresting, humbling and acute memoirs. It is a catch-in-the-throat, life-affirming work that you want to gulp down in one and recommend to all your friends. Fitzmaurice tells her story in sparkling prose that is as sinewy as her new seastrengthened body, and as admirable and boundless as her spirit’ Sunday Times.

The Irish Times Book Club
with June Caldwell

Fri 2 March, 6.30pm, Front Bar Queens Hotel, €5

Books Editor of The Irish Times, Martin Doyle will be speaking to the author of the Irish Times March Book Club Choice June Caldwell about her much lauded debut Room Little Darker which has recently received its UK release from publisher Head of Zeus. ‘The roar of fury and clarity that Irish fiction has been needing. You haven’t read anything like this before... Just brilliant.’ – Belinda McKeon

Gerard Hanberry
On Raglan Road - Great Irish Love Songs and the Women Who Inspired Them

Fri 02 March, 6.30pm, Scéal Eile, Free

Gerard Hanberry will talk about the wonderful women who inspired some of Ireland’s finest lovesongs. The talk is based on his recently published book On Raglan Road – Great Irish Love Songs and the Women Who Inspired Them (The Collins Press). Who exactly was Grace Gifford, the young woman who married Joseph Plunkett hours before his execution in 1916? Who is the real ‘Galway Girl’ and was there ever such a person as ‘Nancy Spain’? Who was the woman who enchanted Patrick Kavanagh when he saw her for the first time on ‘Raglan Road on an autumn day’.

Crime Night
with Liz Nugent, Julie Parsons & Andrea Carter chaired by Clare FM’s Gavin Grace

Fri 2 March, 8pm, glór, €12/€10

Gavin Grace will chat with a trio of award winning crime writers: Liz Nugent, Julie Parsons & Andrea Carter who are all at the forefront of a new wave of crime writing in Ireland. Join us for readings and discussion of their, by turns, eclectic, thrilling, and intriguing, novels.

Festival Club
Sally Rooney & Mary Morrissy

Fri 2 March, 10pm, Temple Gate Hotel, €8

The Friday night Festival Club at the Temple Gate means mingling and performances by writers Sally Rooney and Mary Morrissy.

Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations with Friends, has been published to wide popular and critical acclaim. Her novel recently featured in the New York Review of Books.

Mary Morrissy is an award-winning Irish novelist and short story writer, and the author of three novels, Mother of Pearl, The Pretender and The Rising of Bella Casey, and two collections of short stories, A Lazy Eye and Prosperity Drive.

SATURDAY 3 MARCH

Books & Buns
Sat 3 March, 9.30am, Rowan Tree Café, €10 / €8

Enjoy a Saturday morning book club gathering and test your knowledge of all things literary in our beloved Books & Buns session. Refreshments included setting you up for a busy day!

Walking Tour
with Jane O’Brien

Sat 3 March, 9.30am, Meet @ glór, €8 (also on Sunday 4 March at 10.30am)

Join Jane O’Brien on her award-winning walking tour of Ennis.

10 Books You Should Read
Jane Urquhart & Carlo Gébler chaired by Katy Hayes

Sat 3 March, 11.30am, glór, €12 / €10

A firm festival favourite – 10 Books never disappoints. This year we’ve invited writer and journalist Katy Hayes to chair our authors’ passionate recommendations. Not to be missed. Jane Urquhart is a poet and novelist. Her best-selling and prize-winning books include: The Stone Carvers, The Whirlpool, which won France’s prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger; Away won the Trillium Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and The Underpainter won Canada’s The Governor General’s Award. Carlo Gébler’s most recent publications are The Projectionist, the Story of Ernest Gébler, The Wing Orderly’s Tales, a collection of stories told by a prison orderly, and The Innocent of Falkland Road, a novel set in London in the 1960s. He teaches at Trinity and the American College, Dublin, and is a member of Aosdána.

Clare Youth Theatre
Sat 3 March, 1pm, Studio @ glór, Free

Clare Youth Theatre will present selections from guest authors and dramatise them in their own inimitable way. Clare Youth Theatre, under the direction of Theatre Artist Eleanor Feely, is an initiative of the Clare County Arts Office. The Theatre has a unique artistic vision that is committed to the artistic, personal and social development of the young person.

Modern Ruins and Other Stories
Guided Tour of Kenneth O’Halloran’s Exhibition

Sat 3 March, 11.45am, Gallery @ glór, Free

glór with The Gallery of Photography is delighted to present an exhibition of work by Clare photographer, Kenneth O’Halloran. O’Halloran, now based in Dublin, was born in Corofin and was shortlisted for the 2017 Hennessy Portrait Prize in 2017. O’Halloran’s work has appeared in magazines such as The New York Times, The Sunday Times, Stern, Le Monde, TIME, GEO, The Financial Times and Cosmopolitan. His work has been recognised by World Press, American Photography, Alliance Française, and the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. He is also a winner of the Terry O’Neill Photography award. Modern Ruins and Other Stories will showcase a snapshot of life in rural Clare, poignantly documenting key events in the cycle of life.

How to Run Your Book Club Better
with Mary O’Donnell, Roisin Meaney & Nuala Ní Chonchúir

Sat 3 March, 2pm, Temple Gate, €10

Our expert panel of writers and readers, and book club members Mary O’Donnell, Roisin Meaney & Nuala Ní Chonchúir discuss ways in which you can run your book club better, and get the most out of your meetings. They welcome your questions, and queries on the day, and will present an informal and fun afternoon of book club do’s and don’ts.

New Clare Voices
Joe Queally, Karen McDonnell & Liz Price

Sat 3 March, 2pm, Old Ground Hotel, Free

Ennis Book Club Festival is delighted to support and introduce local Clare writers through the New Clare Voices event. This year the writers include, Joe Queally, Liz Price and Karen McDonnell. Joe Queally is the author of The Fanore School Case, and the book explores ‘one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of Irish Education’ which took place in Fanore in County Clare in 1914. Joe includes a wide range of sources in his research from court records to oral histories and provides a detailed account of what actually happened. Karen McDonnell is a Clare based poet. She will read from her debut poetry collection, This Little World. Liz Price is a short story writer, originally from Dublin but living in Clare for the past twenty years. Liz will read from her first collection of short stories, The Fish Woman And Other Stories.

Wild Atlantic Poets
Readings by members of the Clare Poetry Collective

Sat 3 March, 3.15pm, Record Break, Free

Readings from recently published works by members of the Poetry Collective of County Clare; including, Patrick Stack (Rage), Karen McDonnell (This Little World), Martin Vernon (The Birth and the Cry), Knute Skinner (Against All Odds), Frank Golden (Gotta Get a Message to You), Arthur Watson (Spirit Store) and Mary Ellen Fean (Driftwood).

Rick O’Shea Book Club Special
with John Connolly & Screenings

Sat 3 March, 3.30pm, glór, €12 / €10

Join us for a special event in which bestselling novelist John Connolly will discuss his new novel – a Ryan Tubridy Listeners’ Choice winner at the Irish Book Awards - he, with Rick O’Shea. With he, John Connolly recreates the golden age of Hollywood for an intensely compassionate study of the tension between commercial demands and artistic integrity, the human frailties behind even the greatest of artists, and one of the most enduring and beloved partnerships in cinema history: Laurel & Hardy.

Motherfoclóir
Dispatches from a not so dead language with Darach Ó Séaghdha

Sat 3 March, 5pm, Temple Gate Hotel, €10

Darach’s book, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a not so dead language is an Irish Book Award winner and tells the personal story of a man’s relationship with his language, his country and his Dad, relationships as complicated as the Modh Coinníollach. Darach believes that social media can be a positive force for learning, storytelling and organising.

Sebastian Barry
A Tribute & Interview with Seán Rocks & Special Guests Mia Gallagher & Claire Kilroy

Sat 3 March, 8pm, glór, €15 / €10

In this very special event, we pay tribute to one of Ireland’s greatest living writers, Sebastian Barry. Mia Gallagher & Claire Kilroy will discuss the work of the celebrated poet, playwright and novelist in the first half, and after a short interval, Seán Rocks will be joined on stage by Sebastian for an intimate and unmissable interview. Sebastian Barry is the only novelist to have won the coveted Costa best novel award twice. Days Without End is described by the Financial Times as “not only a story of survival [but] a love story, too, written in a gorgeous style that blends Barry’s characteristic eloquence with the straight-talk of early America … firmly in the tradition of Irish diaspora writing”. He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008) which has since been made into a film by Jim Sheridan.

Festival Club & Trad Session
Sat 3 March, 10.30pm, Rowan Tree Café, Free

Join us for some traditional music at the Festival Club at the Rowan Tree Café. We are delighted to host Pat O’Connor, a fiddle player from Feakle in East Clare. His music has the moderate pace and easy flow associated with the East Clare tradition. He is immersed in traditional music and performs locally, as well as at concerts and sessions in America and Japan. He also gives fiddle playing lessons and has compiled many albums, the latest of which is Conversation at the Crossroad.

SUNDAY 4 MARCH

This year for the very first time Sunday Miscellany comes to the EBCF 2018 and glór for a special recording of the iconic Sunday morning radio show. Sun 4 March, 11.30am, glór,€12/€10
Expect magical readings, and music that will transport you.

Literary Lunch
Mary Kenny in conversation with Ciana Campbell

Sun 4 March, 1.30pm, Old Ground Hotel, €22 (includes lunch)

Join us for a unique lunch of stories, debate, and chat with Mary Kenny. Mary has been a journalist, writer and broadcaster for over four decades. She has written for over 30 newspapers and magazines in London and Dublin and has published many books, including Goodbye to Catholic Ireland and Crown & Shamrock: Love and Hate between Ireland and the British Monarchy. A ‘selective memory’ biography, Something of Myself was published in 2013, and New Island published Am I a Feminist? in October, 2017

Out of the Book Exhibition
Record Break, Free

The Out of the Book Exhibition of paintings and other works of art is inspired by contemporary and classical Irish literature. Artists have interpreted books by Roddy Doyle, John Boyne, Sebastian Barry, Deirdre Purcell, Graham Norton, Judi Curtin, Colm Tóibín and many others. Responding through the medium of visual art, on canvas and paper, in textiles and through ceramics and glass, they will exhibit their individual art works, in a group exposition. The Exhibition will open 6.00 pm on Friday 2nd March 2018 and will run until 30th March.

The Beyond Borders Book Club Panel Discussion
Sun 4 March, 3.30pm, Temple Gate, Free

The Beyond Borders Book Club has been an exciting and inaugural initiative devised by Artistic Director, Paul Perry and facilitated by poet and community activist Sarah Clancy to include and showcase an international dimension and flavour of readers in Co. Clare. Expect a diverse and accessible discussion of literature from all corners of the world. We will hear from Carlos Navotka, Margreat Khalil, Małgorzata Buchalik, Ifeoma Ugwueru, about books from Argentina, Egypt, Poland, and Nigeria.

FOR YOUNGER READERS

The Children’s Book Club
with Caroline Busher

Fri 2 March, 10.30am, De Valera Library, Free

Join us for the festival’s second Children’s Book Club where Caroline Busher will talk with and take questions from our younger readers about their experience with her second

novel The Girl Who Ate The Stars. Ideal for 8-12 year olds.

Baby Book Club
with Sarah Webb - Nursery Rhyme Fun and Craft for Little One

Sat 3 March, 10am, Studio, glór Free

Ages: 0 to 3 (max 15 children)

Sarah will share sea-themed nursery rhymes and songs from her award-winning collection with Steve McCarthy, A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea.

The Book Clinic
Sat 3 March, 10am-2pm, Red Room glór, Free

The Book Clinic will be open between 10am and 2pm and is suitable for children of all ages.

Family Rhyme & Art Fun with Sarah Webb & Steve McCarthy
Sat 3 March 2pm, Studio glór Free

Ages: 5+ and the whole family

Join writer, Sarah Webb and illustrator, Steve McCarthy for this interactive event for the whole family. Revisit favourite childhood rhymes and songs such as A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea and The Owl and the Pussycat, and discover new ones from Ireland and beyond. Watch Steve draw owls, pussycats, boats and sailors, and draw along.

Magical Sense of Storytelling
with E.R. Murray

Sat 3 March 3pm, Studio, glór Free

Explore the magical world of our senses with E.R. Murray, author of The Nine Lives Trilogy (Mercier Press). Investigate sound, taste, touch, smell, and sight – and discover how these elements enrich the stories (both real and imaginary) we have to tell.

TEEN WEEK

Teen Week in association with Clare County Library.

We’re delighted to be teaming up again with Clare County Library to offer readings and workshops with award-winning poets and young adult authors. Events will take place in

glór, Ennis Library and Shannon Library. All children’s events are ticketed, booking advised.

Donal Ryan
glór, Thurs 1 March, 10.30am Free

Shannon Library, Thurs 1 March 2pm Free

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Ireland Professor of Poetry
Glór, Fri 2 March, 11am Free

Sarah Maria Griffin
Shannon Library , Fri 2 March 10am Free

De Valera Library, Ennis, Fri, 2 March, 12pm Free

John Connolly – Sci-fi for teens
De Valera Library, Ennis, Fri 2 Mar 2pm Free

Nessa O’Mahony
De Valera Library, Ennis, Mon 5 Mar 10am Free

Shannon Library, Mon 5 Mar 2pm Free