Programme

What We can Learn about Good Fiction Writing from The Country Girls

Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls is arguably the most significant coming-of-age novel ever written by an Irish woman.  In this book, she writes bravely, freely, and vividly about mothers and daughters, families, teenage love and sexuality. No Irish woman before her had ever written so honestly about young girls, sex, love of nature, people – and clothes. Few have ever written in such lyrical prose, and with such humour. Few coming of age novels are so enthralling. This is a book you can’t put down. And it was written in three weeks!

In this workshop we’ll have a look at The Country Girls, and find out what the secret of good strong writing is. Let’s see how Edna O’Brien took her own experience and transformed it into a novel which is a timeless classic, and a bestseller.

You can create brilliant fiction from life events. If your ambition is to do this, come to the master-class and learn from the master – Edna O’Brien.

This workshop will be facilitated by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, award-winning novelist and short story writer, and acclaimed teacher of Creative Writing.  It is not necessary to read The Country Girls prior to the workshop, but it is recommended that you do – volume one in particular.

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a Dublin writer. She has published over 25 books and has won numerous awards for her writing – including The Stuart Parker Award for Drama, several Bisto awards for children’s books, the PEN award for an Outstanding Contribution to Irish literature, The Hennessy Hall of Fame Award, and many others.  Her novel The Dancers Dancing was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.  She has taught Creative Writing for many years in UCD, and has also taught in Trinity College, and conducted many writing workshops at various literary festivals.  Her most recent book is the acclaimed memoir, Twelve Thousand Days: a Memoir of Love and Loss (Blackstaff, 2018)  She is a member of Aosdana and an Ambassador for the Irish Writers Centre.

Directed by Charlie McCarthy and produced by Clíona Ní Bhuachalla of Icebox Films in 2012, this documentary is based on interviews with Edna O’Brien and her two sons Carlo and Sasha. The film offers a glimpse of O’Brien’s more private life and her writing process. Introduction by director Charlie McCarthy.

IFI and Dublin One City One Book present films directed by Desmond Davis with screenplays by Edna O’Brien

I WAS HAPPY HERE (1965)

Cass (Sarah Miles), escapes from an arid marriage in London and returns home to Co. Clare. The rekindling of passion with her old sweetheart is complicated by the arrival of her husband and the disapproval of locals. Lively scenes of London emigrant experience contrast starkly with life in the faded seaside town in this tale of romance and melancholy. 1965 / 91 mins/ B/W

Tickets in person or at www.ifi.ie

Portrait of the Writer as a Young Woman:  Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls as a prototype of Coming of Age Novels.

Novelist, short story writer and playwright ÉilÍs Ní Dhuibhne will discuss Enda O’Brien’s The Country Girls, its style and content, and its relationship to her own coming of age novel, The Dancers and Dancing.

No booking. All welcome.

ÉilÍs Ní Dhuibhne was born in Dublin and graduated from UCD with BA in 1974, MPhil in 1976 and PhD in1982. She is an Irish novelist, short story writer and playwright in both Irish and English.  Her fiction includes The Dancers Dancing (1999), The Bray House (1990), Fox Swallow Scarecrow (2007) Midwife to the Fairies, The Shelter of Neighbours (2012), Hurlamaboc (2009) and several other books.  Plays include Dun na mBan Tri Thine (first performed in the Peacock 1996, and performed in the Taidhbhearc in July 2017), Milseog an Samhraidh, and an episode in Signatories (2016), amongst others. She has also several non-fiction works and is a regular book reviewer for the Irish Times.  Her latest book is Selected Stories (Dalkey Archive Press, 2017). Her books have been translated to several languages.

Convent life gave opportunities to Irish women to get a good education, avoid ‘compulsory’ marriage and indeed the chance for ‘worldly’ adventures. Find out more with Deirdre Raftery, author of Nano Nagle, the Life and Legacy, and Ireland Professor of Poetry, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin during an evening of talk and readings introduced by Nell Regan.

Join Catriona Crowe of the Royal Irish Academy and Paula Shields of RTÉ Radio One’s Arena programme for a wide-ranging conversation about Edna O’Brien, her Country Girls Trilogy and the 1960s society that reacted to the book.

Celebrating Edna O’Brien’s ‘The Country Girls Trilogy’, a Clare County Library Special Book Club Event hosted by Dr. Tina O’Toole

Clare County Library is proud to participate in the Dublin One City One Book Festival 2019 as it celebrates the work of acclaimed Clare-born author Edna O’Brien. Library book clubs, and the general public, are invited to read The Country Girls Trilogy and then gather together at a special book club event in Scariff Public Library in East Clare, Edna O’Brien country, to share their views on the book. Dr Tina O’Toole will host the event and will give a talk on Edna O’Brien and her work, followed by a Q&A.

Dr Tina O’Toole is a senior lecturer in English and programme director of the MA English at the University of Limerick. Dr O’Toole’s books include ‘The Irish New Woman’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); ‘Women Writing War: Ireland 1880-1922’ (UCD Press, 2016; co-edited with Gillian McIntosh & Muireann O’Cinnéide); and ‘Irish Literature: Feminist Perspectives’ (Carysfort Press, 2008; co-edited with Patricia Coughlan).

The Irish Literary Society, London, with the support of the Dublin One City, One Book festival brings together a fascinating panel to discuss Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls Trilogy, as it is being celebrated in Dublin as the chosen festival book. We’re delighted to extend the consideration of O’Brien’s work to London, a city pivotal to her writing career and where the third book in the trilogy (Girls in Their Married Bliss) is set. 

Panel discussion with authors Helen Cullen and Paula McGrath, and academic Dr Sinéad Mooney, chaired by Dr Anne Goudsmit. 

Dr Anne Goudsmit left Ireland to study at Sussex University and at the Sorbonne before moving to London. Her early career was in Finance, when she worked at Citibank and subsequently at ITV. Anne wrote her PhD thesis on Northern Irish fiction at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, where she was a visiting lecturer. She is a member of the Irish Literary Society. She recently became a member of the board at the Irish Cultural Centre where she convenes a monthly Book Club.

Helen Cullen is an Irish writer living in London. She worked at RTÉ for seven years before moving to London in 2010. Her debut novel, The Lost Letters of William Woolf was published by Penguin in July 2018. Helen is now writing full-time and working on her second novel. She is also a contributor to the Irish Times newspaper and Sunday Times Magazine. Helen holds an M.A. Theatre Studies from UCD and is currently completing an M.A. English Literature at Brunel University. She was nominated as Best Newcomer in the An Post Irish Book Awards 2018.

Dr Sinéad Mooney is a graduate of University College Cork and the University of Oxford. She is currently a senior lecturer in English at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she teaches Irish literature and creative writing. Her monograph, A Tongue Not Mine: Beckett and Translation (Oxford University Press) won the 2012 American Conference for Irish Studies Robert Rhodes Prize, and her chapter on Edna O’Brien appeared in the recent in A History of Modern Irish Women’s Literature, edited by Clíona O’Gallchóir and Heather Ingman. She is currently working on a study of Irish women’s modernism.

Presented by Garrett Fagan, students read a variety of books chosen to relate thematically to the 2019 Dublin One City One Book choice. No prior knowledge is required for this course beyond an enjoyment and an interest in reading and in finding out more about your city.

Presented by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and The New Theatre. A selection of excerpts from the final book in Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls Trilogy. Romantic Kate and pragmatic Baba, now both married, experience the trials and troubles of love and passion against the backdrop of 1960s London. Starring Katie O’Kelly and Madi O’Carroll. Produced and directed by Anthony Fox, Curated by Jane McCarthy.

Spend the evening in the company of Edna O’Brien, author of this year’s Dublin One City One Book and one of Ireland’s most treasured writers. Edna will be interviewed by writer Colum McCann about her enormous contribution to world literature. She will be joined by singer Moya Brennan and harpist Cormac de Barra, playing some of her favourite music. Selected excerpts from The Country Girls Trilogy will be read by actor Seána Kerslake. 

Booking is essential. Maximum of 2 tickets per booking.

Edna O’Brien‘s works include 18 novels, 9 collections of short stories, 5 plays, biographies of James Joyce and Byron, a cultural history of Ireland, memoirs and a volume of poetry. She is the recipient of many awards including the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Arts Gold Medal, the Frank O’Connor Prize and the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she has lived in London for many  years.

Colum McCann is the author of 6 novels and 3 collections of stories including Transatlantic and Thirteen Ways of Looking. He has won numerous international literary awards and his fiction has been published in over thirty languages. Let The Great World Spin was the winner of the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award and the National Book Award in the USA.. He most recently published Letters to a Young Writer.

Seána Kerslake is best known for The Hole in the Ground which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, A Date for Mad Mary, Dublin Oldschool and Can’t Cope Won’t Cope. She has appeared in many theatre productions including Mood Music at London’s Old Vic. Seána was the recipient of the Bingham Ray New Talent Award and has been nominated for 3 IFTA Awards.

In a long illustrious career with Clannad and as a solo performer, Moya Brennan has established a reputation as one of the great performers of Celtic music, an Irish icon with the world as her stage.  Her uniquely soulful ethereal voice has attracted a huge international following and earned her countless awards and record sales in excess of ten million.

Virtuoso harper, Cormac De Barra, is one of Ireland’s premier traditional musicians.  He has toured and played all over the world with major stars such as The Chieftains, Liam O’Maonlai, Brian Kennedy, and principally as accompanist for Moya Brennan. As well as performing, Cormac is a presenter on TG4’s Flosc and Imeall TV series.

Presented by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and The New Theatre. A selection of excerpts from the final book in Edna O’Brien’s acclaimed The Country Girls Trilogy. Romantic Kate and pragmatic Baba, now both married, experience the trials and troubles of love and passion against the backdrop of 1960s London. Starring Katie O’Kelly and Madi O’Carroll. Produced and directed by Anthony Fox, Curated by Jane McCarthy.

Presented by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and The New Theatre. A selection of excerpts from the final book in Edna O’Brien’s acclaimed The Country Girls Trilogy. Romantic Kate and pragmatic Baba, now both married, experience the trials and troubles of love and passion against the backdrop of 1960s London. Starring Katie O’Kelly and Madi O’Carroll. Produced and directed by Anthony Fox, Curated by Jane McCarthy.

Presented by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and The New Theatre. A selection of excerpts from the final book in Edna O’Brien’s acclaimed The Country Girls Trilogy. Romantic Kate and pragmatic Baba, now both married, experience the trials and troubles of love and passion against the backdrop of 1960s London. tarring Katie O’Kelly and Madi O’Carroll. Produced and directed by Anthony Fox, Curated by Jane McCarthy.

Presented by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and The New Theatre. A selection of excerpts from the final book in Edna O’Brien’s acclaimed The Country Girls Trilogy. Romantic Kate and pragmatic Baba, now both married, experience the trials and troubles of love and passion against the backdrop of 1960s London. Starring Katie O’Kelly and Madi O’Carroll. Produced and directed by Anthony Fox, Curated by Jane McCarthy.

Join Declan Kiberd and photographer Dragana Jurisic for a fascinating discussion about the censorship of the 1960s and the algorithmic censorship of social media today. Chaired by Nell Regan. 

Brendan Behan said it best: the finest Irish writers were all banned at some time. From James Joyce to Edna O’Brien, none escaped the censors’ wrath.

The ordered removal of Maser’s Repeal the 8^th mural has brought censorship to the fore once again. Is freedom of artistic expression being limited in Ireland? Are issues such as funding, promotion, social media restrictions and discrimination creating conditions for self-censorship? Join a host of artists and activists as we remember and examine censorship.

Join a host of artists and activists as we remember and examine censorship from 11am to 4pm at Project Arts Centre. A light lunch will be provided.

This event is organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Irish Writers Centre, Poetry Ireland and Writers’ Guild, and is kindly supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Culture. 

Tickets will be available from Project Arts Centre