Omagh Literary Festival 2023

The Omagh Literary Festival: Honouring Benedict Kiely celebrates 22 years of promoting the work of Benedict Kiely and other contemporary Irish writers.

Since 2002, Omagh Arts Committee has invited over 100 speakers including academics, journalists, writers, playwrights, and poets for example Colum McCann, Michael Longley, Sinead Gleeson, among many other distinguished guests.

The Festival Committee, supported by Fermanagh & Omagh District Council is thrilled to invite you to their Grand Festival Finale in Strule Arts Centre on Saturday 5 August.

The Opening event 11.30am will be held in the Auditorium, patrons can enjoy a tea & coffee in the foyer prior to the event.

Dara McAnulty, award-winning conservationist and author of ‘Diary of a Young Naturalist’, ‘Wild Child’ and ‘A Wild Child’s Book of Birds’ is in conversation with ‘Take On Nature’ columnist Stephen Colton from the Irish News.

Stephen lives in Dromore, Co. Tyrone. He recently retired after teaching for almost thirty years in St. Patrick’s Primary School, Eskra, where he was able to share his lifelong interest in the natural world, conservation, and environmental issues. He is a keen birdwatcher and has participated in surveys for the RSPB, Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group (NIRSG) and the Irish Raptor Study Group (IRSG). Stephen also writes a fortnightly Saturday nature column, Take on Nature in The Irish News and his book Conversations with Nature was published in 2012.

Lunch 12.30 – 1.30pm

Book a table for lunch and enjoy the traditional music group Síle or an afternoon of FREE music in our cafe area 12.30 -1.30pm. Contact the Cafe directly on 07516977794 Síle is a group of Irish traditional musicians comprising of 4 members; Maebh McGlinchey (fiddle), Aine Rodgers (piano/ flute), Megan Teague (flute/ whistle), Cara Rose Brogan (guitar/ vocals). All are from Tyrone, and have been playing traditional music from a young age. Maebh has won two All Ireland titles on the fiddle in the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, and is the current champion of the under 18 fiddle lively. Maebh and Aine won the All Ireland Scór Na Nóg title of 2022. Aine has placed twice in the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, in piano accompaniment, and most recently in piano, in 2022. Both herself, and Megan won the under 18 All Ireland Fleadh céilí band competition of 2022. Megan has won two All Ireland titles at Fleadh, in the whistle, and in the flute. Most recently, she placed in the All Ireland flute competition of 2022. Cara Rose is the Scór Na Nóg solo singing champion of 2019 and 2022, and has won the English singing county fleadh competition numerous times.

Short Film 1.30pm

Nominated for the 95th Academy Awards in the ‘International Feature Film category of the Oscars.  Even before its release, Colm Bairéad’s debut feature became one of the most lauded and garlanded Irish films of recent years. Adapted from Foster, a short story by Claire Keegan, it centers on nine-year-old Cáit, a shy and withdrawn child who receives scant attention or affection from a family ruled by an uncaring patriarch. When she is sent to spend the summer with her aunt Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and her husband Seán (Andrew Bennett), she comes out of her shell, blossoming in their care, especially when Seán’s initial aloofness fades. At the end of the summer, difficult decisions and realities must be faced. This is a work of small moments and details, anchored by Catherine Clinch’s remarkable performance as the titular quiet girl, that makes for a film of pure artistry, as uplifting as it is heartbreaking.

Award Winning Authors 3pm

Claire Keegan and Wendy Erskine in Conversation. Claire Keegan’s works of fiction have won numerous awards and are now translated into more than thirty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster, after winning the Davy Byrnes Award — then the world’s richest prize for a story — was chosen by The Times as one of the top 50 works to be published in the 21st Century.

Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and The Kerry Prize for Irish Novel that year. She was awarded Woman of the Year for Literature in Ireland in 2022. Wendy Erskine lives in Belfast. Her debut collection, Sweet Home, was published by The Stinging Fly Press in Sept 2018 and Picador in 2019, has been translated into Italian and Arabic and optioned for TV. It won the 2020 Butler Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2019, and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019. The story ‘Inakeen’ was longlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Prize 2019. Sweet Home was Book of the Year in the Guardian, The White Review, Observer, New Statesman, and TLS. Wendy’s second collection of stories, Dance Move, was published in February 2022.Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Winter Papers, Female Lines: New Writing from Northern Ireland, and Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (Faber) and read on BBC Radio 4.

Puiblished Poet 4.30pm

Bernie Crawford, published poet, living in Co. Galway, reads from her first full collection, ‘Living Water’,’…one of the most achieved Irish poetry debuts of 2021′ (K.Higgins, Irish Times, 2021). Her poetry has been published in Irish and international journals and anthologies including Banshee, The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, the North magazine, The Stony Thursday Book and Mslexia. She was the winner of New Irish Writing in the Irish Times in January 2020, the 2019 North West Words competition and 2017 Poetry Ireland/Trocaire competition. She was placed second in the 2018 Blue Nib Summer Chapbook Contest and a selection of her poetry was published in the Blue Nib’s third chapbook.

In 2019 she was awarded a bursary by Galway County Council to work towards a debut collection.

She is a co-editor of the popular poetry magazine Skylight 47. She co-founded a Poetry Reading Group in Oranmore Library which meets every month and she facilitates creative writing classes with the Oranmore Active Retirement Group.

Grand Finale 8pm

‘Celebrating Our Roots‘ in letters and songs with Dr. Patrick Fitzgerald, Head of Research at The Mellon Centre for Migration Studies at the Ulster American Folk Park, Omagh, and the Drunken Lullabies – folk and traditional music with a twist. Dr. Fitzgerald will read from a selection of original emigrants ‘ letters home.

In 1994 Dr. Fitzgerald was awarded a PhD in History from Queen’s University Belfast. His thesis was entitled Poverty and Vagrancy in Early-Modern Ireland (1540-1770). He is a former curator of Emigration History at the Folk Park (1990-98) and in 1994 curated a major indoor gallery exhibition charting the course of Ulster-American emigration 1700-1900 and entitled Emigrants. Between 1996 and 2012 he was responsible for the delivery of an MSSc. in Irish Migration Studies accredited by Queen’s University Belfast. From 2012 he has contributed to the Public History MA at Queen’s University and in 2013 was awarded a certificate by the university for the quality of his teaching. He has acted as both supervisor and external examiner of PhD theses.

He has co-authored with Dr. Brian Lambkin Migration in Irish History, 1607-2007 (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2008). He has also acted as editor or joint editor of three collections of essays and numerous essays and articles on a wide variety of aspects of Irish migration history. In 1999 and 2003 respectively he acted as consultant to television documentary series such as The Irish Empire and On Eagle’s Wing. He has sat on the Editorial Board of History Ireland for the past 20 years. In 2021 he completed a three year term as vice-chairperson of the Association of European Migration Institutions.

This evening gives a snapshot into the world of our Irish emigrants as the letters tell their stories. Listen to the evocative songs that highlight their lives as the wheel of fortune turns.

To book your tickets and for more information please click here