Samuel Beckett gets Trinity summer schoolGiven our mania for summer schools and his close association with Trinity, both as student and lecturer, it seems a surprise that the college is only now establishing a Samuel Beckett summer school.
The inaugural week-long celebration of Ireland's third Nobel literature laureate will take place from July 10th to 16th. Beckett's alma mater will host scholars, students and fans from around the world for whom one of the big attractions is bound to be an exhibition of the college's collection of Beckett manuscripts. Performances will include The Endby the Gare St Lazare Players. Film screenings, lectures and workshops will also form part of the school. The contributors will include Linda Ben-Zvi, Ian Buchanan, Michael Colgan, Garin Dowd, Gerry Dukes, SE Gontarski, Nicholas Johnson, Barry McGovern, Anna McMullan, Mark Nixon, Sarah Jane Scaife, Dirk Van Hulle and Shane Weller. See beckettsummerschool.com.
Crossing boundaries with Thomas Kilroy
Speaking of Trinity, its Samuel Beckett Theatre is the venue for this evening's performance of a work by another Irish playwright. The Abbey is staging a reading of Thomas Kilroy's Blakeat 8pm, as the finale to Across the Boundaries, two days of talks about Kilroy's work, which continues with three sessions today: Publishing Kilroy, at 2pm; Reading Kilroy, at 2.30pm; and Directing Kilroy, at 4pm. The contributors include Peter Fallon, Adrian Frazier, Declan Hughes, Emer O'Kelly, Wayne Jordan, Lynne Parker and Patrick Mason, who also directs Blake, a work about the British poet, printmaker, painter and mystic (ticket details at abbeytheatre.ie). All of the discussions take place in the Long Room Hub.
Joyce’s modernist heirs at SoundEye festival
The Cork-based SoundEye festival distinguishes itself as a "gathering of innovative and experimental poets" not normally heard at the other literary festivals held throughout the country at this time of year. The festival, founded by the poet and New Writers' Press co-founder Trevor Joyce, marks its 15th anniversary at this year's event, which takes place between July 13th and 17th. Originally known as Cork International Poetry Festival, it also features film, sound art and music, focusing on pieces that the organisers regard as "working from the modernist and experimental traditions established by figures such as Joyce and Beckett". The line-up promises the Canadian poet Steve McCaffery, author of the epic concrete poem Carnival– a book composed from typewritten script designed so that, to see it whole, you must rip the pages from their binding and reassemble them. See soundeye.wordpress.com or soundeye.org.
Hedge school honou rs Joyce, O'Casey, Kavanagh
The third annual Larkin Hedge School, which takes place next Thursday to Saturday, this year celebrates the designation of Dublin as a Unesco City of Literature. On Thursday night the ballad singer Barry Gleeson, brother of the actor Brendan Gleeson, will pay tribute to Joyce, O'Casey and Kavanagh in the Writers in Song session at the Flowing Tide pub, on Abbey Street. On Saturday night at Liberty Hall another of the city's literary sons, Seán O'Casey, will be commemorated in The Song of the Green Crow,a new production arranged by Des Geraghty. Tickets are available at the door for each event. See cleclub.wetpaint.com.
Jennifer Johnston kicks off Fiction Fridays
Ireland Literature Exchange and Dublin City Public Libraries are holding lunchtime readings by Irish writers at 1pm each Friday in May, at the Central Library in the Ilac Centre, as part of the Bealtaine Festival. Four Fiction Fridays start next week with the novelist Jennifer Johnston reading from her work and taking questions from the audience. The other writers taking part are Carlo Gébler, on May 13th, Kevin Barry, on May 20th, and Paul Murray, on May 27th.
