If it’s the first weekend in March, it can only mean one thing – it’s time for the Ennis Book Club Festival.
And this year, thank goodness, there’s no Storm Emma dumping tons of snow on the country to cancel the whole thing. Storm Freya is approaching from the south though, but so far all we have had to deal with is LOTS of rain. And hey! – a book festival is mostly indoors anyhoo!
Yesterday, I joined my companeros in the Poetry Collective, and other poetry lovers, for the monthly First Friday in the library in Ennis. We had a great crowd – the interest is growing for this monthly event. Thanks to Martin Vernon who is such a good host, and who read a lovely poem in memory of his sister. AND who brought a lovely vase of daffodils and treated us to Wordsworth’s poem. A lovely Spring reading.
Then to St Columba’s church to hear Thomas Lynch speak on death and grief and memory. He got a wonderful introduction from writer Grace Wells. Then he mused on the loss of writers Philip Casey, Macdara Woods, Dennis O’Driscoll, Seamus Heaney and Matthew Sweeney – such a rollcall of the lost. But the work remains. Thank you, Tom, for your company and gracious words.
And now, I must sign off and head into Ennis again. This morning it’s the tradition to go to ’10 Books You Should Read’ with my mother. In the afternoon, I join my sister poets for a #Fired inspired reading in the Record Break Café – The Seven Sisters. As with last year, we will read some of our own work, but also work by Irish poets who have been neglected in the last hundred years or so. This year I’m reading work by Helen Waddell.
After last year’s cancellation, it’s a joy to be joining in the live recording of RTÉ radio’s live recording of Sunday Miscellany. That takes place in Glór at 11.30am. There may be a few tickets left for the early birds!
And so – to the Festival!
Karen J McDonnell 