Granard Booktown Festival

🎉 We're thrilled to announce that we've been selected as a County Finalist in the Arts & Culture Category of the @NationalLottery Good Causes Awards 2025! 🎉
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🙌 This nomination isn't just for us – it's for everyone in the community who's been part of the festival. 🙌 From volunteers and staff.

📣 Kneecap statement repost from X:

It was so cool to be involved in this gem of a festival in Granard, despite whatever has happened to my Longford accent

And thank you to our great sponsors

A huge thank you to our funders The Arts Council, Longford County Council, Longford Tourism and Creative Ireland

And finally for our final event of Granard Booktown 2025, John Banville in conversation with Belinda McKeon 📚

Award winning Irish crime writer, Liz Nugent was joined by journalist Emma Tracey for our penultimate event here at the Granard Booktown festival 📕

Cauvery Madhavan was joined by author and journalist Aoife Barry to discuss her latest book The Inheritance which was published in 2024 📚

Scottish writer Karen Campbell was joined by fellow author Anne Griffin over in the Sacred Heart School. Karen is the author of nine novels. Karen discussed her latest book This Bright Life. Her previous novels include Paper Cup, The Sound of the Hours, Rise and This Is Where I Am.

We were joined by authors Conor Niland and Gavin Cooney behind the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, The Racket. Author Mark Tighe led the discussion with the co-authors where they chatted about the story of pro tennis’s 99%, the players who roam the globe in hope of climbing the rankings

Over in the School, Bridget Hourican was joined in brilliant conversation with author and journalist Aoife Barry where Bridget discussed her book Finding Mangan 📚

Multidisciplinary artist Luke Casserly joined writer and artist Dani Gill in Granard Library, where they discussed Luke’s recent production for the Abbey Theatre

We opened our third and final day here in Granard Library with a beautiful and moving “Granard Miscellany” 📚 Writers from the Granard Writer’s Group read out some of their latest work and were accompanied by music from local, talented Granard musicians

Thank you to everyone who came out to our final day here in Granard! We had another jam packed day of talks so lets have another walkthrough of what went on here in Granard 📚 #GranardBookTown

Great to see Conor Niland and @gcooney93.bsky.social at @granardbooktown.bsky.social

Conor’s book the Racket - about the travails of a lowly Irish tennis player - is *really* good

Multidisciplinary artist Luke Casserly joined writer and artist Dani Gill in Granard Library, where they discussed Luke’s recent production for the Abbey, Distillation. Described as being a performative journey, Distillation takes you to the Irish bog landscape through scent #GranardBookTown

The Granard Writer’s Group sitting and standing for a group photo

Woman playing harp, hands on strings

Sister Maeve Brady reading her written work, blurred crowd in the foreground

A view of a full audience in the Library hall

We’ve opened our third and final day here in Granard Library with a beautiful and moving “Granard Miscellany” 📚 Writers from the Granard Writer’s Group read out some of their latest work and were accompanied by music from local, talented Granard musicians #GranardBookTown

Just taking a wee morning stroll before my event @granardbooktown.bsky.social in Ireland today. Am surrounded by lochs, and feel very at home. Gorgeous!

And a huge thank you to our sponsors

A huge thank you to our funding partners
The Arts Council,
Longford County Council,
Longford Tourism and
Creative Ireland

And another thank you to our brilliant venue partners Granard Library, Fay’s Bar and Sacred Heart School

And lastly, we had an extraordinary finale with Carole Cadwalladr joined in conversation with Bryan Dobson. A fascinating discussion with two journalistic greats on the future of journalism, democracy and much, much more. This has been day two #GranardBookTown

📘Peter Geoghegan discussed his latest book Democracy for Sale: Dark Money with fellow Longford native Shaunagh Connaire

📚A fascinating discussion with Afghan-Canadian journalist and author Nelofer Pazira-Fisk in conversation with journalist and filmmaker Shaunagh Connaire

⚽️ Miguel Delaney discussed his book States of Play with Gavin Cooney

We had poetry and pints in Fay’s, joined by three local poets Mary Melvin Geoghegan, Darragh Coady and Louise G Cole who read some of their latest works 📚

Stinging Fly editor and writer Lisa McInerney chaired a brilliant discussion between three debut authors, James Roseman (Placemakers), Louise Hegarty (Fair Play) and Elaine Garvey (The Wardrobe Department) 📗📕📘

🪄We opened the day with a magical family event with the brilliant Sinead O’Hart

🌊Over in Fay’s Bar, we were joined by Amy-Jane Beer who discussed her book The Flow with Mark Wormwald

📚 We were joined by Emma Tracey and Síona Cahill. Emma is BBC journalist and podcaster behind the show Access All

A portrait photo of Granard town, spire in the distance

It’s been a busy, busy day two here in Granard! I think we’re due a little recap of the day 📚

📸 All images in thread,
Liam Flannery

Delighted to have a shout out from @carolecadwalla.bsky.social for Democracy for Sale at @granardbooktown.bsky.social 😊

Join the buzz democracyforsale.substack.com

Love these photos of my chat with Conor Gearty at @granardbooktown.bsky.social yesterday.

We talked a lot about human rights, anti terrorism laws and colonialism but we also laughed a lot. Was terrific fun

Claire Keegan gave great writing advice and such an insight into her craft last night at @granardbooktown.bsky.social. She revealed that she “thinks” her next book is a novel, and that she hopes to publish a new short story a year. @faberbooks.bsky.social