Literary life blooms in Leitrim

Novelist Claire Keegan, UK prize-winning journalist Gary Younge, and Kurdish-Irish- sportsman and author of 'Life Begins in Leitrim' Zak Moradi are among the guests taking part in this year's Iron Mountain Literature Festival in Carrick-on-Shannon from Friday, October 6, to Sunday, October 8. 

There will be a recording of a special Iron Mountain Sunday Miscellany at The Dock Arts Centre on the evening of Friday, October 8, and The John McGahern Memorial Lecture will be given by Síobhra Aiken, lecturer in Queen's University Belfast and author of 'Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War'.

Pictured is the Novelist Claire Keegan, UK prize-winning journalist Gary Younge

Also taking part in the Festival will be Saud Aldarra, author of the best-selling memoir 'I Don't Want to Talk about Home: A migrant's search for belonging', which was shortlisted for the Irish National Book Awards Biography of the Year. 

Roddy Doyle described her memoir as 'powerful, fascinating and deeply moving - the book pushes aside our lazy images of human migration and refugees'.

Ken Boyle and Tim Desmond, authors of 'The Murder of Dr Muldoon' on the case of the infamous killing of the local doctor in Mohill in March 1923, will also be guests at the Festival, as will Irish-French writer Mary Byrne.

There will be a boat trip on the River Shannon from Carrick on Shannon to Cootehall to visit the John McGahern Barracks and a session of readings and music at Skerry Rynn's bar and grocers in Ballinaglera to coincide with the Ballinaglera Traditional Music Festival.

Pictured is the Kurdish-Irish- sportsman and author of 'Life Begins in Leitrim' Zak Moradi

Iron Mountain Festival 2023 emerged from the John McGahern seminar, and it was established in 2016, reframed in a wider context involving writers, artists and thinkers from many perspectives. 

The Festival is a wide-ranging event that combines panels, talks, readings and field trips, which looks at ideas central to and arising from an exploration of place, home and identity and the role of literature in shaping an understanding of history and human experience. 

Weekend tickets (€70/€45 concession) are available from the Dock on 071 96 50828 or see www.ironmountainfestival.ie for full programme details.